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THE LAND HERO OF 1812 



By C. C. HOTCHKISS. 



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A Romance of the American Revolution. 
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The Strength of the Weak. 

A Novel. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

Betsy Ross. 

A Romance of the Flag. i2mo. Cloth, 
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!; 




The maddened officer aimed a blow at the defiant lad. 

See page 12. 



THE LAND HERO 
OF 1812 



BY 



CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS 

AUTHOR OF FOR A MAIDEN BRAVE, A COLONIAL 
FREE LANCE, ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1904 



Cc^v^ 1 \ 



^^'^T' 

^H?-? 



LiCRANY »* CONGRESS 
Tvvo Oooies Recrtved 

JUL 12 1904 
^ OoDyrtrht Entry 

LA98 «- yxo. Na 



COPY B 




Copyright, 1904, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Publishe^^^^e^'trmbft^ J§3^ 



Major ROBERT F. AMj:S, U.S.A. 

THIS BOOK 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

BY HIS LIFE-LONG FRIEND 

THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



There have been upward of two hundred 
and fifty works devoted either entirely to the 
life and acts of Andrew Jackson or treating 
of the times in which he was a conspicuous 
figure. And it is strange that those accounts 
of him written while he lived or soon after 
his death are of the least value as possessing 
the least of truth. All his earlier biographies 
are so colored by violent prejudice or un- 
reasonable adulation as to be well-nigh worth- 
less. 

The late Mr. James Parton has done 
more toward uncovering the facts concern- 
ing the most unique public character the 
United States ever produced than any other 
writer, living or dead. He consulted every 
work connected with Jackson, however re- 
motely, corresponded with and interviewed 

vii 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

scores of those who were able to throw light 
on the life of the great man, and finally em- 
bodied the results of his years of labor in 
a volume of but little less than a million 
words. 

Those familiar with that extensive work 
will recognize that the author of this book 
has taken Mr. Parton's view of the character 
of his hero. The story is temperate, un- 
biased, and, according to the best sources of 
information, as near the truth as such a work 
can be. 

Though the following pages were written 
primarily for the young, they are not beneath 
the notice of the more mature, and the writer 
believes they have sufficient interest to hold 
the attention of both. 



C. C. H. 



Guilford, N. Y., 
September, igoj. 



vni 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface vii 

I. — A FUGITIVE I 

II.— A PRISONER II 

III. — A PIONEER JUDGE 24 

IV.— A DUELIST .36 

v.— A FEUD ........ 49 

VI. — In THE FIELD 62 

VII. — A MUTINY 71 

VIII.— Tahopeka 82 

IX. — The end of the Creeks , . . .91 

X. — Fort Bowyer 102 

XI. — The battle iii 

XII.— Pensacola 125 

XIII. — The British land 134 

XIV. — The night attack 147 

XV. — The English advance 159 

XVI. — The artillery duel 173 

XVII. — Preparations . . . . . . . 183 

XVIII. — The grand assault. ..... 190 

XIX.— Progress .... 4 ... 205 

XX.— Ambitions satisfied . • . . .211 



IX 



i 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 

The maddened officer aimed a blow at the defiant y' 

lad Frontispiece 

Scores of Indians plunged into the current. . . 96"" 
A new flag was planted on the ramparts . . . I2i 
From the roof of his headquarters he could view the 

distant enemy 166 -^ 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 



CHAPTER I 

A FUGITIVE 

** This way, Andy — this way ! We must 
take to the slough or they will have us ! " 

The speaker swung in his saddle and looked 
at his brother, who, in turn, was looking at a 
companion behind him, while still in the rear 
there came thundering along the red road a 
dozen or more men in scarlet uniforms in- 
tent on capturing the three who were fleeing 
before them. 

Andy gave a shout and cut his horse with 
the single old spur he wore, darting ahead of 
the trio. The dust spun away from the fly- 
ing hoofs in sharp spurts as the boys, for two 
were boys and the third but little more, tore 
along the road, casting frightened glances 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

over their bent shoulders. Those behind 
were gaining. 

The pursuing detachment belonged to 
Lord Rawdon, who had been left in com- 
mand of the British when Lord Cornwallis 
with the bulk of the army moved north on 
his way to his later fate, the surrender at 
Yorktown. The time was in August, 1781 ; 
the place, the Waxhaws in the Carolinas. 

The three racing ahead were Lieutenant 
Thomas Crawford ; his cousin, Robert Jack- 
son; and the latter's younger brother, Andrew, 
a fiery, overgrown, gawky lad of about four- 
teen, destined to become the most unique 
public character America ever produced — 
lawyer, Indian fighter, general, governor. 
President of the republic, and always hero. 

Andrew was being roughly schooled to 
future daring, and as he heard his brother's 
cry and noted the rapid gaining of the pur- 
suers, he turned his powerful horse from the 
road and the three galloped across a broom- 
straw covered field, and plunged into the 
swamp beyond. It was tremendous work 

2 



A FUGITIVE 

even for the mighty animal Andrew rode, 
and when, after a desperate struggle with the 
sucking treachery of the mire, the horse stood 
upon firm ground on the opposite side, he 
was streaming with perspiration and trem- 
bling from exhaustion. 

The boy looked back. His brother was 
out of sight hidden by the thick underbrush 
of the swamp, but Crawford was in a tragic 
plight. His horse, mired, had fallen, pin- 
ning the lieutenant by the leg, and over the 
prostrate officer stood a mounted dragoon 
striking at the unfortunate man with a saber. 
The fallen patriot made what faint resistance 
he might at this disadvantage, parrying the 
fierce blows with his own sword, but in a 
moment more Andrew saw his cousin struck 
down and immediately after became alive to 
the fact that he was not yet out of danger 
himself. 

Having skirted the most treacherous part 
of the morass, two troopers were bearing 
down at full speed on the lad. He could 
hear the jingle of metal against metal, and 

3 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

see the drawn sabers flash in the sunshine of 
the hot afternoon. 

It could hardly be supposed that the 
youth feared death at the hands of his pur- 
suers, but he did not depend upon his tender 
years to defend him. He had intended to 
act the part of a brave man and meet the 
enemy in a fair field, but the little company 
of patriots the boy had but that morning 
joined, and which had gathered to resist the 
British, had been surprised and put to rout 
before it had a chance to form and fight. 
Even at the age of fourteen Andy was not 
made of the stuff that cringes under defeat 
or looks to policy for protection. He had 
retreated because those older than himself 
had retreated, and in the light of his after- 
life, it is easy to suppose that he would have 
shown a brave front to the two oncoming 
dragoons had he been well armed. It might 
make a brilliant page of romance to here de- 
scribe a fight in which our hero triumphed or 
fell gloriously wounded, but truth compels 
the statement that Andy again stuck his sin- 

4 



A FUGITIVE 

gle spur into his horse and ran in fright or 
from prudence, it is difficult to say which. 
Into the tall pines that abounded he went and 
soon lost his pursuers. 

But he did not lose himself. Every deer 
path, every brook (branches he called them), 
every little savannah in the forest, was as 
familiar to the boy as the sleeping-loft in his 
mother's log house. Like a fox he wound 
through the thickets, alone but not lonely, 
making his way to a secluded spot where he 
had agreed to meet his brother in case of 
their separation. And there the two did 
meet — refugees now, defeated and hunted, 
and no dwelling might hold them in safety. 

** Bob, Tom Crawford's down ! " were his 
first words as he tied his horse. ** Looks to 
me as though he was done for, but, by the 
Eternal ! I'll be even with those fellows 
yet ! " 

Robert said nothing, but his face wore a 
dark frown, and he bit his lip. 

''What'U mother say?" were his first 
words. 

5 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

** Say ! " repeated Andrew. " I don't know 
what she'll say, but I know what she'll do ! 
She'll hunt us up when she learns we ain't 
caught ; and I wish she would. I'm 'most 
starved — ain't had anything to eat since day- 

light." 

Let us look at the two lads as they stand 
side by side, or rather, at the younger, for 
of Robert Jackson's appearance history says 
nothing. 

Though a boy in years, and less than a 
boy in girth, Andrew Jackson was a man 
in height. He never became stout, but as a 
lad he was like a lath, spare and erect, but 
weak from the rapidity of his growth. His 
face was long and sallow, with a decided 
Scotch cast to his features, and around them 
hung his long, untrimmed yellow-red hair. 
Flis eyes were dark blue, honest, fearless, and 
wide open. There was nothing repellent in 
Andrew's face until those eyes showed the 
piercing sparkle of anger; then he became 
dangerous and stubborn past breaking. He 
would have gone straight to ruin if necessary 

6 



A FUGITIVE 

to effect his purpose ; man or youth, no one 
ever knew Andrew Jackson to back down 
from a position once taken. He might be 
beaten, but he was never known to surrender. 

The boy was thin-lipped, square-chinned, 
wide-eyed, long, and awkward, as he stood or 
lay in the woods that night. A country lad 
of the South, clad, like hundreds of others, 
in shirt and breeches, and little else save 
coarse shoes and stockings. Powder-horn 
and bullet-pouch swung from his shoulder, 
and his horse and rifle stood hard by. The 
latter were his dearest possessions, and al- 
most his only ones, for in those early days in 
the South no boy of even the age of twelve 
considered himself worthy of the respect of 
his fellows if he did not own a horse and a 
gun. How Andrew obtained them no one 
living knows, but he was always a judge of 
horseflesh and firearms, and never owned any 
but the best of either. 

The two boys spent the night in hiding. 
The uncanny blackness of the wilderness 
which chills a later generation was as home 

7 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

to them. They were without a fire. As 
having nothing to cook, it was not necessary ; 
as a means of discovering their hiding-place 
it would have been dangerous. Their sole 
concern was that they had been put to flight 
without striking a blow for their country, 
and that they were hungry, as boys are likely 
to be after twenty-odd hours of fasting. At 
daylight they tightened their belts (probably 
of rope), laid their heads together, and deter- 
mined to leave their horses and arms hidden 
in the woods, and themselves go to Craw- 
ford's house, which was the nearest habita- 
tion. Food had become an imperative neces- 
sity ; they would risk much to obtain it, but 
had they been a little older or wiser they 
would have selected the night for their expe- 
dition. 

Crawford's house, like all houses in that 
vicinity, was built strongly of logs ; but though 
the lieutenant's home was humble, and his 
wife, unaware of her husband's fall, carried 
a newly born infant in her arms, the brothers 
were warmly welcomed and fed, and here for 

8 



A FUGITIVE 

a few hours they rested and made plans for 
the future. 

Lord Rawdon's swift raid had quickly and 
effectually subjugated the Waxhaw region, 
but it had done nothing toward mitigating 
the enmity between the Whigs, as the pa- 
triots were called, and the Tories, or those in 
favor of the British. Neighbor fought 
against neighbor, and friendships were 
strongly marked by party lines. There was 
one man who had been intimate with the 
Jacksons in the days of peace, long before, 
but the fiery dissensions of the hour had got 
into his blood, and though he pretended to 
be a stanch Whig, he was doing all in his 
power to direct the British troops against the 
patriots. An underhanded coward was he ; 
too timid to take the field openly, but apt 
and active in spying and treachery. His 
name is lost to history. He, of all those 
about, alone knew of the escape of Robert 
and Andrew Jackson. With a perfect knowl- 
edge of the haunts and habits of the lads he 
tracked them to their lair in the forest, and 

9 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

from there to Crawford's house, and thinking 
that he could now strike a final blow at his 
unsuspecting neighbors, he hurried to the 
British encampment, but a few miles away, 
and lodged his information with the officer 
in charge of the troops. 

Though Andrew lived to be an old man, he 
never forgot that day. While the boys were 
eating their scanty dinner the alarm was 
given that the British were coming. They 
sprang to the door, but it was then too late to 
attempt to escape from the house, and to 
hide within it was impossible. They were 
surrounded; the doors were beaten down, 
and the two were at last in the hands of the 
enemy, prisoners of war, they thought, but 
the British thought otherwise. 



lo 



J 



CHAPTER II 

A PRISONER 

In those days there was no code or agree- 
ment between nations to regulate acts of un- 
necessary cruelty toward prisoners, and by 
the wild glee of the British soldiers one 
might have thought that the two unarmed 
youths who had fallen into their hands were 
fair game for them, important captures and 
prime movers in the war, whereas neither 
had yet struck a blow or fired a shot. With 
unusual violence the dragoons vented their 
venom against the house and its inmates. 
Every species of outrage was practised in 
that lonely dwelling. Mrs. Crawford was 
brutally beaten, the child she held stripped 
of its clothing, the crockery wantonly 
smashed, the bedding and furniture demol- 
ished. The two young prisoners, struck and 
sworn at, stood looking at the scene of inex- 

11 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

cusable destruction, helpless to prevent it, but 
the spirit of neither had been broken. When 
the place was sufficiently wrecked, the officer 
in charge of the dragoons pulled off his 
muddy boots, and throwing them at Andrew, 
ordered him to clean them. The boy 
flushed to the roots of his yellow hair, but 
did not move. 

** Clean those boots, ye young hound!'* 
shouted the officer, pointing at them with his 
drawn sword. 

" I am a prisoner of war, sir," returned 
Andy, ** and expect to be treated as such. I 
will not clean your boots nor the boots of 
any he ! " 

The maddened officer swore a great oath, 
and raising his saber, aimed a blow at the 
head of the defiant lad. With a quick sense 
of his danger, the boy threw up his arm to 
protect himself, thereby probably saving his 
life. The heavy steel descended, cutting the 
arm to the bone, driving down the slight 
guard and laying open the scalp for eight 
inches. Andrew dropped senseless, and the 

12 



A PRISONER 

now infuriated man turned on Robert and 
repeated the order. As brave as his brother, 
Robert likewise refused, and in a moment 
more lay on the floor beside Andrew. 

It has been stated in history that the offi- 
cer's name was Pakenham, that he was of 
high degree, having come to America to win 
his spurs, and that he had royal blood in his 
veins. This is hardly probable, as Paken- 
ham was but thirty-eight in 1 8 1 5 ; but if the 
error is in his age and the first statement is 
true, it is to be hoped that he remembered that 
day when, thirty-four years later, and on the 
plains before New Orleans, he met the boy 
he had once tried to kill, where he and his 
army experienced the most terrific defeat, at 
Andrew Jackson's hands, that an army ever 
submitted to — a meeting that not only hum- 
bled the knight, but caused his death. 

Whether or no Pakenham ever forgot, 
Andrew Jackson never did, for he carried a 
reminder in the shape of a deep depression 
in his skull. His fierce enmity for the Brit- 
ish had its birth during the Revolution, in 

13 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

which he witnessed such scenes and experi- 
enced such cruelty as to forever after affect 
his health and bias his opinions. 

Undoubtedly the officer concluded that 
he had effectually broken the spirit of the 
youths who had refused to clean his boots, 
but the gold-laced aristocrat knew as little of 
the sturdy characters with whom he had to 
deal as did the Parliament which had sent 
him to America realize the impossibility of 
subjugating the colonies. 

When Andrew recovered his senses, which 
he soon did without help, he was ordered to 
mount a stolen horse and guide the squad to 
the house of one Thompson, a stout Whig 
partizan whose capture was greatly desired 
by Lord Rawdon. Sick and sore, with his 
wounds undressed and bleeding, but still 
kept up by the fierce rage gnawing at his 
heart, Andrew crawled into the saddle, ap- 
parently humbled into obedience, but with a 
firm determination to save his friend if pos- 
sible. Threatened with instant death if he 
led the party astray, he set out in an opposite 

H 



A PRISONER 

direction from Thompson's house, and guided 
the dragoons over miles of intricate for- 
est paths, tiring their horses while working 
around to his destination, so as to come in 
sight of his friend's dwelling while yet more 
than half a mile from it. He well knew 
that the watchful patriot always had his 
horse in readiness for an escape at the first 
sight of the enemy, and by entering the clear- 
ing on the side farthest from the house, he 
hoped Thompson would have sufficient 
warning. 

And so it proved. As the squad broke 
from the forest and charged forward, An- 
drew had the satisfaction of seeing the hunted 
man rush out, throw himself upon the horse 
standing by the door, wave a defiance at the 
oncoming British, and plunge his animal 
into the swollen creek that ran hard by ; then 
with a shout he disappeared into the forest 
on the opposite side. Whether the dragoons 
were afraid of the foaming waters, or their 
horses were too fatigued to pursue, is not 
known, but it is known that they then and 

15 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

there gave up the chase and returned to camp 
tired and unsuccessful. Andrew's trick was 
not suspected. 

But the knowledge that he had saved his 
friend was all the satisfaction the boy re- 
ceived. Without having theirwounds dressed, 
without rest, food, or even water, the two 
brothers, together with Crawford, who had 
been brought in hurt but alive, and some 
twenty other prisoners captured during the 
previous day, were mounted, and the whole 
force, with its captives and booty, started for 
the British post at Camden, S. C, forty 
miles away. 

The treatment the prisoners received was 
inhuman. Not a morsel of food was allowed 
them ; not even during a halt were they 
permitted to scoop up the water by the road- 
side to quench their thirst. On arriving at 
Camden they were all penned in the jailyard, 
a small enclosure, and left to live or die with 
no more attention than cattle in a corral. A 
small ration of the coarsest food was here given 
to them, but they were robbed of their shoes. 

16 



A PRISONER 

Exposed to a fierce southern sun during 
the day, and unsheltered from the chills of 
night, such treatment naturally resulted in 
sickness. Presently the smallpox, the scourge 
of that day, broke out among the prisoners, 
and soon raged. Nothing was known of 
vaccination at that time, and nothing was 
done to stay the ravages of the disease ; in 
fact, no more attention was at first paid to 
the sick than to the well. At last, through 
the protestations of Andrew, the attention of 
an officer was called to the deplorable condi- 
tion of the captives, and at length they were 
provided with shelter, and their food was 
bettered in quality and quantity. 

Neither of the brothers had as yet been 
infected with smallpox, but the day finally 
came when they both sat shivering in the hot 
sun, and knew they had fallen under the 
hand of the dreaded and filthy malady ; and 
here they would have died had it not been 
for Mrs. Jackson, who, true to Andrew's 
estimate of his mother, hunted up her sons. 
When she learned of their capture, and later 

17 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

of their whereabouts and condition, she 
started for Camden. Some say she made 
the whole forty miles on foot, but, be that 
as it may, she arrived to find both her boys 
reduced to such an extent that she did not 
know either of them. 

With a woman of energy who has pure 
love for a motive all things are possible. By 
a mixture of tact, appeal, and threat, she 
finally succeeded in getting five of the 
patriots, besides her sons, exchanged for thir- 
teen British dragoons who had been captured 
in the Waxhaws, and with the rescued party 
she started homeward. There were but two 
horses. Mrs. Jackson rode one, and Robert,^ 
too sick to hold himself upright in the 
saddle, was placed on the other, and held 
from falling by those who walked beside 
him. Andrew, though suffering and half de- 
lirious, was compelled to walk or be left be- 
hind, and he started out, buoyed by that 
indomitable will that marked his whole life, 
and enabled him to drag success from seem- 
ing failure. 

18 



A PRISONER 

The forty miles of the then wilderness 
that lay before him was one long-drawn tor- 
ture to the tottering boy, but he bore up 
and staggered along, never far in the rear. 
With what speed the party progressed there 
is no knowing, but without abatement the 
smallpox went on through its successive 
stages until the disease was manifested in 
a multitude of pustules. By this time the 
little band had arrived at a point very near 
the Waxhaws and hoped for home and rest 
within a few hours ; but the fair weather, 
which had so far attended the journey, here 
left them, and while almost in sight of their 
haven they were overtaken by a cold and 
drenching rain-storm. Cold and wet are the 
best friends of smallpox, and the result of 
the chill and storm was fatal to one of the 
brothers. Though they reached home, Rob- 
ert soon left it forever, for, as a result of ex- 
posure, added to hardship, he died in two 
days, and Andrew, crazed with a wild delir- 
ium, was considered to be in a hopeless con- 
dition. Had not youth and a wonderful 

19 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

vitality, together with good nursing, been on 
Andrew's side, he would undoubtedly have 
followed Robert, for in those days there was 
little or no medical skill outside of the larger 
cities. The widowed mother who had seen 
one son, her eldest, die in battle at a date 
prior to the opening of this story, and an- 
other pass away as a result of cruelty and neg- 
lect, fought for the life of her remaining 
boy as only a stricken woman can fight. She 
won, and Andrew at last turned his back on 
death, but so far had he gone on his way to 
the grave that there was but little left of the 
lanky youth, who, in his best days, never 
carried the flesh belonging to the average 
man, though he was far above the average 
height. For months he was an invalid, and 
at one time it seemed likely that he would 
never recover from the shock of his experi- 
ence; but the same indomitable energy which 
later enabled him to sway multitudes of his 
fellows, again helped him out of extreme 
physical depression, and presently his health 
improved and his old vigor returned. 

20 



J 



A PRISONER 

But for all his hardships he was still a 
boy. Experience alone, and of the sort he 
had known, did not ruin the spirits of An- 
drew Jackson. He was mischief personified, 
and his mischief was like himself — of the 
vigorous kind. One can not speak in praise 
of his youthful habits. He swore — and 
swore hard. He drank, he gambled, raced 
horses, fought cocks, entered into a quarrel 
with wonderful gusto, and did other things 
equally bad, but there is no instance of his 
lying, cheating, or stealing. In those wild 
days frontier morals were lax ; brute force 
swayed in most matters, and the popular 
one was he who would go the farthest in 
dissipation and daring, Andy excelled in 
both particulars. His orgies were wild, his 
courage he showed in numberless ways, 
He was a skilful, daring, and hardy rider. 
For all his gawky figure he sat on his horse 
like a god and appeared to become a part of 
the animal he rode. Few men have ever 
equaled him in horsemanship — none ex- 
celled him, and he never rode an inferior 

3 21 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

animal if another could be had. From 
youth to old age Jackson's love for horses 
was proverbial. 

Had his mother lived it is probable that 
the boy would have led a steadier and more 
wholesome life, but soon after Andrew's 
recovery from the smallpox Mrs. Jackson, 
encouraged, perhaps, by the success of her 
mission to Camden, journeyed to Charleston 
for the purpose of lessening the horrors of 
the American soldiers there held in captiv- 
ity. Though partly successful in this ven- 
ture, little is known of it ; all that is certain 
is that on her way home she sickened with 
the putrid, or ship fever, and died in the 
house of a friend. 

And so before Andrew was fifteen years 
old he became an orphan. Though not 
without friends, he was without money or 
property of any kind. He was also without 
prospects, and without more education than 
that picked up in an " old field school," the 
latter being the simplest of log huts, built 
on exhausted land, the teacher having only 

22 



A PRISONER 

enough knowledge to impart a smattering 
of reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. 
Andrew never learned to spell correctly, but 
he lived at a time when few men did. His 
thoughts were forcible and well expressed, 
as a rule, but they were embodied in correct 
writing by other hands than his own. He 
openly acknowledged this weakness, but 
usually turned the matter off with the re- 
mark that he did not think much of a man 
who could spell a word in but one way. 

Here was a poor equipment for a youth 
who must needs face the world. Nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, 
under these circumstances, would have de- 
generated into mere loafers or farm hacks, 
but Andrew Jackson was the one thousandth, 
and his wonderful rise from abject poverty 
and crass ignorance to a pinnacle of fame 
shows that a favorable start with influence 
and education are not to be compared to 
will, energy, or well-balanced determination. 



23 



CHAPTER III 

A PIONEER JUDGE 

There are no means of telling where 
or how Andrew made his first money. We 
know that after the war he appeared in 
Charleston, S. C, without employment, but 
with a magnificent horse and some ready 
cash, which last he promptly dissipated in 
wild living and became indebted to his land- 
lord for the food he ate. Just here came 
the turning-point in his life. 

Having exhausted all his resources save 
that he still kept his horse, a thing every 
gentleman was compelled by custom to do, 
and having squeezed dry the rag of city life, 
he desired to return home, but was without 
a cent for traveling expenses. In this pre- 
dicament he happened to enter a room 
where gambling was going on by the usual 
method of throwing dice, and very possibly 
24 



A PIONEER JUDGE 

thinking sorrowfully of all the mone)^ he 
had thus thrown away, in a fit of despera- 
tion he staked his fine horse against $200, 
determining that in case he lost he would 
give his landlord his saddle and bridle in 
part payment of his debt and make his way 
homeward on foot. His heart was in the 
game when once he had embarked. His 
opponent threw and threw high. When it 
was Andrew's turn he took up the cup, 
shook it and sent the ivory cubes dancing 
over the table. He could scarcely credii: 
his senses when he saw he had won, but 
without a word he picked up the stakes and 
left the room without as much as a good- 
by to his comrades. This was Andrew 
Jackson's last game of chance for money. 
He never gambled again ; but he had paid a 
mighty price for his lesson. 

With his winnings he promptly settled 
his debts to the last cent and rode home- 
ward, evidently determined to waste time 
no longer, but make something of him- 
self. The ride was long, but it was full of 

25 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

thougths of purpose that took form, and 
with our hero to purpose was to do. He de- 
termined to study law, and study law he did, 
as he did everything, but he interspersed his 
dry law lessons with bursts of revelry that 
were neither praiseworthy nor dignified. 
The old town of Salisbury, N. C, still bears 
record of the gay spirits of the young law 
student who pored over his books, when he 
deigned to study, in the shanty-like office 
of Mr. Spruce McKay, whose name is still 
kept green by being connected with that of 
his wild protdgd. When the young man 
had absorbed all the legal lore he could as- 
similate, he was examined, passed, and called 
to the bar of North Carolina. 

Andrew was not a profound lawyer, but 
the law was never to make him great, though 
through it he trod the path that led him to 
greatness. He was now about twenty-one 
years of age ; tall, standing six feet and one 
inch in his stockings ; thin and straight. 
He was never robust, but at that time he 
was not ailing in health. He was homely, 

26 



A PIONEER JUDGE 

but his homeliness was that of strength, and 
any one looking into the young man's face 
saw at a glance that he was no nonentity but 
a man of character. 

It was no small matter for a lad as 
poorly prepared as Andrew to make a living 
and get an education at the same time. 
The living was not high nor the education 
deep, but such as was the latter it proved to 
be the foundation on which he built his 
fame. He was one who leaped in the dark» 
depending somewhat on chance and some- 
what on the fact that if he failed to land as 
he hoped he would be no worse off than 
though he had remained on the ground from 
which he jumped, and so, after his license 
was obtained, he made another leap and 
landed in Nashville, in what is now the State 
of Tennessee. 

Having by some unknown means ob- 
tained an appointment as public prosecutor 
or solicitor for that far Western district, he 
joined a party of settlers and rode through 
the wilderness. The point to which he was 

27 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

bound was then an outpost of civilization 
and the country over which the band trav- 
eled was swarming with hostile Indians. 
It was in October, 1788, when Jackson ar- 
rived among the settlers of Nashville, a 
community with which he was forever after 
identified. As a public prosecutor he was 
not looked upon with favor, and the office 
was both difficult and dangerous ; it might 
have been fatal to one less popular or less 
supplied with grit and determination, fatal 
from the animosities he naturally created 
among those who came under his official 
hand, and fatal because of the long and 
lonely rides through the dark forests on his 
way from settlement to settlement — rides he 
was compelled to take in the prosecution of 
his business. One can realize the peril of 
these official journeys when it is known that 
so hostile were the Indians it was consid- 
ered unsafe to live more than three or four 
miles beyond the stockades of Nashville. 

Yet Jackson never met with mishap from 
the bullet, hatchet, or arrow of a redskin. 
28 



I 



, A PIONEER JUDGE 

However, he became an expert Indian fighter 
and more than once set out with a party to 
punish some band which had committed an 
unusually atrocious act. History has no 
record in detail of any of these minor ex- 
peditions, but we will soon come upon some 
that were not minor and which no historian 
can overlook. 

As a solicitor he made his mark in the 
community and became prosperous. There 
was but little ready money in circulation in 
that far country at that far time, and the 
young lawyer was often compelled to take 
land in payment for his services. Thus he 
came in possession of some thousands of 
acres of property, which grew in value as 
the people grew in wealth and numbers, 
and from a portion of these holdings he cre- 
ated the estate known as The Hermitage, 
which remains to-day much as he left it, being 
protected by the State of Tennessee, that 
government having acquired the title. He 
first built a modest house of logs, purchased 
slaves, laid out a farm, and stocked it with 

29 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

fine horses and the best breeds of cattle ob- 
tainable, and with this done, Mr. Solicitor 
Jackson entered on the one romance of his 
life ; he married the divorced wife of Lewis 
Robards, daughter of the pioneer, John 
Donelson, for whom was named the fort that 
became famous during the late war of the 
rebellion. This act tinctured the remainder 
of Jackson's life and compelled him to fight 
a duel which well-nigh resulted in his own 
taking off. But that was later, and we will 
touch upon it in its proper place. 

By 1 796 our hero had attained to such a 
pitch of popularity that he was elected by 
the young State of Tennessee as its Repre- 
sentative in the United States Congress, and 
there he had the pleasure of seeing the re- 
tiring President, George Washington, and 
hearing his farewell address before he re- 
turned to private life. The name of Wash- 
ington was not then the talisman it has since 
become, and the ** Father of his Country" had 
many enemies ; our hero was one of them. 

Jackson made but one speech in Con- 

30 



A PIONEER JUDGE 

gress, but that one was effective and gained 
all he desired it to do. He resigned his seat 
soon after, and returned in triumph to his 
home, and all Tennessee rang with his praise. 
Now he was elected to the Bench of the 
Supreme Court and became a judge. The 
lanky young lawyer had progressed rapidly, 
for his position was now but one degree 
below that of the Governor, and his salary 
was the then magnificent sum of $600 a year ; 
the Governor only received $750. 

As a judge, Jackson was a strenuous dis- 
penser of justice, and one before whom a 
criminal dreaded to appear. Justice he gave 
without fear or favor, and he demanded im- 
plicit obedience to himself and respect for 
his office. On one occasion there was a no- 
torious criminal who had been summoned to 
appear before him, but who scouted the man- 
date of the court and defied the sheriff to 
arrest him. Fully armed and uttering loud 
and violent denunciations at all the minions 
of the law, he strutted up and down the 
street and in front of the building in which 

31 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

the session was being held. The citizens 
were awed, and the sheriff reported the man 
as dangerous, — that not one of his deputies 
dare attempt his arrest. 

**Why do you not get him yourself?" 
asked Jackson, the spark of wrath beginning 
to flash from his eyes. 

** It would be death, your Honor ! The 
fellow is armed like a pirate and defies 
every one ! " 

" He does, does he !" shouted the judge. 
** By the Eternal, we'll see about this ! Mr. 
Sheriff, summons me as one of your posse; 
summons me at once ! " 

Jackson went into a white rage on the 
instant, and the sheriff, not daring to do 
otherwise, gave the judge his formal appoint- 
ment as a deputy with directions to arrest 
the offender. 

The judge, hatless and coatless, descended 
from the bench with the papers in his hand 
and, followed at a respectful distance by a 
crowd of court loungers, went into the street 
and started for the criminal with a long and 
32. 



A PIONEER JUDGE 

rapid step. Quick as a flash the desperado 
drew two pistols and aimed them at the 
newly made officer, but the newly made 
officer was not to be stopped from fear of 
powder and ball. He went steadily on, his 
eyes blazing with a fury few men were able 
to withstand. 

** It's no use, Bob ! Fve been sent after 
you and, by the Eternal, you've got to go 
along with me ! So give in while ye may and 
not when ye must ! " 

The criminal appeared thunderstruck at 
the coolness and bravery of the judge, for 
without firing he lowered his pistols and said : 

"Well, Andy, ef you've been sent arter 
me I suppose I've got to go. The darned 
ole shootin'-irons wa'n't loaded, anyhow." 

The judge took him into court, gave up 
his warrant as the sheriff's deputy, resumed 
his seat on the bench, and though the cul- 
prit was well known to him and hitherto 
they had been friends, he tried him then and 
there, found him guilty and gave him the 
full penalty of the law. 

33 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

This is a very fair instance of Jackson's 
temper — fiery, impetuous, and he often ap- 
peared to entirely lose hold of himself, and 
apparently boiled with wrath. But much of 
this was in appearance only. It is true that 
he allowed his temper to master him very 
frequently, but never until he had given the 
matter before him sufficient thought to 
clearly see his course ; then he went in re- 
gardless of consequences, and often carried 
by storm that which would have been im- 
possible to carry by appeal or logic. 

He kept his place on the bench for six 
years, all the time holding on to commercial 
life, for he had started a store and a trading 
business with a partner whose name was 
Coffee, of whom we shall hear more. Be- 
tween the ages of thirty and forty his years 
were very full. He became rich, then failed 
during a commercial panic and became poor, 
but he paid every cent he owed. He was in 
many kinds of business ventures, succeeding 
in some, failing in others. Among his suc- 
cessful ones was his trade in fine horses — 

34 



A PIONEER JUDGE 

blooded horses — of which he was passion- 
ately fond. From Virginia he obtained. the 
celebrated Truxton, named after a commo- 
dore in the United States navy, and the breed 
of horses from this progenitor is well known 
to-day among horsemen, and is highly valued. 
When Jackson was thirty-five he was 
elected major-general of the militia of Ten- 
nessee, and it was this office that afterward 
enabled him to fill the public eye as well as 
to bring out the peculiar military talents 
with which he had been gifted by nature. 



35 



CHAPTER IV 

A DUELIST 

Major-General Andrew Jackson, of 
Tennessee, was fitted by nature to the days 
and place in which he lived. Outlawry was 
so common as to create scarcely a remark, 
and fights — often fatal — were looked upon 
as matters of course. No gathering was 
considered complete and interesting unless 
one or more fights occurred. Race-tracks 
were fair fields for serious broils ; a political 
meeting was bound to end in a fray — some- 
times murderous, sometimes not, but violence 
was sure to crop out before it was over. On 
election days men would meet in the street, 
strip off their coats, and get to punching 
each other because they did not believe alike 
on political questions ; and even religious 
gatherings were not exempt from furious 
outbursts of temper and even fistic battles. { 

36 



A DUELIST 

Fury seemed to sway men in those days 
more than it does now. Something they 
called *' honor " was forever being outraged 
and defended, and this wonderful point of 
imagined honor often compelled foolish 
people to stand up and be shot at by their 
fellow man for some trifling act, difference 
of opinion, or insult, real or fancied. This 
was the duel ; and a fine sway it had through- 
out the young United States between the 
years of 1790 and 18 15. 

The duel amounted to just this. If you 
say something true about me and the truth 
hurts me, then I challenge you and you and 
I fight. If I happen to be the best shot and 
kill or even wound you, the truth is nullified 
and I am a great man. This was about the 
way the thing was looked at years ago. I 
had to defend my so-called " honor," or my 
wife's good name, or my friend's reputation, 
showing the falsity of your statement be- 
cause I was the better shot, or more blood- 
thirsty, or less afraid than you. 

This is silly business, though such silly 

^ 37 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 



business frequently ended in tragedy — a 
silly tragedy; and it was one of these silly 
tragedies that hoisted our major-general high 
into general notice and at the same time 
hurt his reputation more than any other one 
act of his life. He fought a number of times, 
but this duel must be described because it is 
so much a part of our hero's life that it 
can not be left out of any history dealing 
with him. 

After all, it was part and parcel of those 
times of violence. He was under the general 
laws of society, and society made the duello a 
necessity. Jackson was obliged to challenge 
his man or stand before the community 
branded as a coward ; and Andrew Jackson 
was no coward, whatever else he might have 
been. 

The matter began over a couple of 
race-horses — ^Jackson's Truxton, before men- 
tioned, and one called Plowboy, owned by 
a neighbor and in which a Mr. Charles 
Dickinson was interested. This Charles 
Dickinson was a gay young blade, more or 

38 



A DUELIST 

less dissipated, and loud and indiscreet when 
under the influence of liquor. He and Jack- 
son had a slight quarrel over the race (which, 
by the way, never came off), and after the 
thing was smoothed over and probably for- 
gotten by the general, Dickinson made some 
remarks in public touching the reputation 
and virtue of the general's wife. This was 
the spark which fired the powder of Jack- 
son's temper. A slur cast on his wife was 
the deadliest insult to him and one which he 
would have died to resent. It is only fair 
to say that Dickinson spoke falsely about 
the lady, for Mrs. Jackson was a woman 
above reproach ; all who knew her loved her 
for her high qualities and her good sense. 
From his courtship until the day of her 
death Jackson was always her chivalrous 
lover, courtly and kind, and though the 
lady was not greatly favored in form or 
feature, her husband exacted the utmost 
respect to her. 

Aspersions on her character from a man 
like Dickinson brought Jackson to the white 

39 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

heat of his wrath; his Scotch-Irish blood 
boiled over, and he challenged the offender 
to mortal combat ; just as if the killing of 
one or the other would settle the rights and 
wrongs of the question. 

Dickinson, being the challenged party, 
had the choice of weapons, and as he was 
reputed to be the best shot in Tennessee, he 
promptly chose pistols and openly boasted 
that he would put his ball through the heart 
of his opponent. The duel was to take 
place on Friday — fateful day — May 30, 1 806, 
and the spot chosen for this exhibition 
of hatred was over the Kentucky line and 
in the forest on the banks of the Red 
River. It was a day's horseback ride from 
Nashville. 

For all that his antagonist was a dead 
shot with the weapon selected, Jackson did 
not quail from the meeting, although his 
demeanor held less assurance than that which 
marked his opponent. The two principals 
started Thursday morning for the rendez- 
vous, each accompanied by a number of 
40 



A DUELIST 

chosen friends. The Dickinson party made a 
gala time of their journey and, it is asserted, 
Dickinson, himself, gave frequent and varied 
exhibitions of his skill with the pistol, per- 
haps to intimidate his antagonist, who was 
behind him, perhaps to gain confidence in 
his own powers. There is little doubt, how- 
ever, that Dickinson looked upon the matter 
of Jackson's death as a foregone conclusion 
and was cruelly coquetting with the feelings 
of his intended victim when he directed 
that there be shown to the Jackson party a 
string which he had cut with a bullet from a 
distance of twenty-four feet, and a silver dollar 
on which were the marks of four bullets fired 
from the same distance at the word of com- 
mand. 

But he little knew of the iron nerve of 
the man he attempted to frighten, nor con- 
sidered the calm judgment and generalship 
of Jackson's second. General Thomas Over- 
ton, an old Revolutionary soldier and one 
perfectly familiar with the laws and tricks of 
dueling. That night Jackson ate a hearty 

41 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

supper and smoked his long pipe, as was his 
habit, while over the latter principal and 
second discussed a number of fine points 
which, probably, had not been thought of by 
the others. 

The mode of procedure, as already ar- 
ranged, was a little unusual and seemed to 
favor Dickinson, whose quickness in aim was 
as remarkable as his accuracy. The two 
combatants were to stand face to face with 
pistols in hand but with their arms hanging 
at their sides. At the word of command 
they were to raise their weapons, aim and 
fire, each to have one shot. For Jackson to 
raise his pistol and aim and fire ahead of 
Dickinson was thought to be impossible, 
and the two smoking cronies discussed this 
matter over their pipes and glasses and 
decided to allow Dickinson to have the first 
shot. If some recent statements are true 
they schemed further and more to the pur- 
pose. Jackson's figure was tall and exceed- 
ingly spare, and his long, loose coat tended 
to make him appear taller than he was. If 
42 



A DUELIST 

reports are trustworthy, the foxy second of 
the future President of the United States 
now determined that Dickinson should be 
deceived as to the exact whereabouts of that 
heart through which he had promised to put 
his pistol ball. The long, loose coat was to 
be buttoned closely from waist to chin, but 
beneath it was to be placed sufficient stuffing 
of some sort -to make the general's figure 
more rotund and better proportioned to his 
height. Nothing was to be put between his 
body and the ball he looked for, as he stood 
with his right side exposed, but the front 
profile of his figure was to be expanded and 
rounded with padding. How fair this was, 
according to the laws of dueling, let others 
decide, but that it was done admits of little 
doubt, and additional color is given to it 
from the fact that Dickinson, for all his well- 
known skill, was to be allowed to have the 
first shot unmolested. The deception was 
made possible from the circumstance that 
neither of the duelists had seen each other 
for over a year; their quarrel had been at 

43 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 



arm's length, the whole trouble resting on 
correspondence and hearsay reports carried 
by tale-bearers. It was pretty small business 
for men of sense and reputation. 

After thus settling affairs principal and 
second separated and went to bed. Jackson 
slept soundly; how Dickinson passed the 
night is not known, but he probably was not 
troubled by a lack of confidence in the re- 
sult of the meeting on the morrow. 

That morrow dawned bright and beauti- 
ful, and Jackson, with General Overton and 
a surgeon, left the party which had accom- 
panied them and repaired to the chosen 
ground. If the coming hero of New Or- 
leans felt any trepidation he certainly did 
not show it. He smiled pleasantly (and his 
smile was very attractive) as, shaking each 
of his departing friends by the hand, he ob- 
served that there was nothing alarming in the 
situation. ** I shall wing him, never fear," 
was his last remark as he turned from them. 

The grand old woods that witnessed this 
bloody affair are now gone and cultivated 

44 



A DUELIST 

fields stretch away on either hand, but then 
the somber arches of the forest sifted the 
gay May sunlight and sent it dancing over 
the mossy ground. It was a hideous thing 
to disrupt nature's benign rule by there 
bringing to a focus the hatred of two men. 

From the time he approached the duel- 
ing ground Jackson never spoke until the 
affair was over. All was politeness when 
the opposing parties met, the principals re- 
maining apart. The preliminaries had been 
pretty thoroughly arranged beforehand, and 
nothing was left to preface the socially legal- 
ized murder but to choose for position and 
choose who should give the word. The 
choice of position was won by Dickinson's 
second, that of giving the word to fire by 
General Overton, and at once the two com- 
batants were placed in position, pistols in 
hand. Dickinson, though slightly pale, 
looked confident and smiling ; Jackson 
stood like a carved statue, somber, erect, and 
to all appearances perfectly self-contained. 
His hat was off and his hair stood bristling, 

45 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

as we see it in his portraits; his coat was 
tightly buttoned and both arms hung loosely 
at his sides. His right side alone was ex- 
posed to Dickinson's fire. 

General Overton advanced to his place, 
and laying his hand on the butt of the pistol 
he carried in his belt, said : 

"Are you ready?" 

Both men answered in the affirmative, 
and before their words were fairly out he 
shouted, in his broad Scotch accent : 

''Fere!'' 

Like a flash Dickinson's arm went up 
and flame leaped from his pistol. Jackson's 
left arm jerked outward, and then he brought 
it across his chest, but otherwise he did not 
move. Dickinson's ball had gone where it 
had been aimed — to the exact spot where 
the man had thought Jackson's heart was 
beating, but, as hoped, the deception had 
worked and the bullet had plowed the gen- 
eral's chest, breaking two ribs and making an 
ugly but not dangerous nor serious wound 
had it been properly dressed. 

46 



A DUELIST 

As Dickinson saw the result of what he 
thought was his defective aim he fell back 
several paces and exclaimed : 

** My God ! I have missed him ! " 

" Back to the mark, sir ! " thundered 
Overton, drawing his pistol. 

Dickinson immediately recovered him- 
self and went back to his position, where he 
calmly awaited the return fire. 

Then it was that Jackson moved. Slow- 
ly raising his pistol, he took deliberate aim 
and pulled the trigger, but the weapon was 
defective and the hammer stopped at half- 
cock. As unconcerned as though shooting 
at an insensible mark, Jackson recocked his 
weapon and aiming once more, fired. Dick- 
inson reeled and fell into the arms of his 
second. The ball had passed through his 
body just beneath his ribs and he bled to 
death in half an hour, without even the sat- 
isfaction of knowing that he had hit his an- 
tagonist, for Jackson kept to himself the 
fact that he had been wounded until he was 
off the field. It took him a month to re- 

47 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

cover from the immediate effects of the shot, 
but not a word did he ever drop that might 
lead one to suppose he regretted having 
taken the life of Charles Dickinson. 

Under the laws of God, if not of man, 
his act was murder, calm and deliberate, and 
in his later life it probably troubled his con- 
science even more than the wound troubled 
his body, and the latter, after twenty years 
of quiescence, broke out as an abscess and 
gave the general more or less annoyance for 
the remainder of his days. 



48 



CHAPTER V 

A FEUD 

For the next six years, or until the break- 
ing out of the War of 1812, a war with our 
old enemy, England, caused by her unwar- 
ranted aggressions on our merchant ships 
on the high seas, Jackson led what might for 
him be called a quiet life. That is, he did 
not fill the public eye, though he was as hot- 
headed and strenuous as ever. He was in 
many wordy disputes, through which he went 
in his bursting fashion ; he took an active 
part in a number of fights and acted as sec- 
ond in a duel or two, but for the most part 
he led the life of a gentleman planter and 
attended to business and politics, which last 
was almost a business for him. 

Finally the cloud of war lowered, and, 
with his usual promptness, Major-General 
Jackson offered his sword to the United 

49 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

States Government, also tendering the serv- 
ices of the little army of State militia which 
he commanded. He had never yet heard a 
cannon save when as a boy during the Rev- 
olution he listened in awe to the thunder of 
the British artillery ; but that mattered little 
to a man like Andrew Jackson. He felt 
equal to pitting himself against any military 
genius of the day, trained or untrained. He 
was something like Napoleon in that he did 
not depend upon tradition or a knowledge 
of old laws to insure success in military ma- 
neuver ; he was a law unto himself. 

Being the first to come forward and hav- 
ing the indorsement of a few friends at 
Washington, his offer was accepted and he 
received a commission from President Madi- 
son, but definite orders did not come for 
some time. The war, which was never very 
brisk, dragged, and the Mississippi Valley 
had not been threatened. Jackson, now a 
general in the United States Volunteers, 
continued his calm life, raced his horses, 
traded in his store, though his partner, 

50 



A FEUD 

Coffee, did most of that business, and waited 
for his orders to arrive, for his hour to strike. 
He did one thing that stands out from the 
monotony of smaller events ; he adopted one 
of the infant sons of his wife's brother, gave 
him his name, and brought him up as his own 
son and heir. This was the Andrew Jack- 
son of Tennessee, who died but a short time 
since. 

At last he received instructions to mus- 
ter 1,500 volunteers and proceed with them 
down the Cumberland, Ohio, and Missis- 
sippi Rivers to New Orleans, and there re- 
enforce General Wilkinson, who was in com- 
mand of the forces in and about that city, 
as it was feared that the British, having made 
a good defense of Canada, would transfer the 
seat of active hostilities to the lower Missis- 
sippi Valley. The regular army was not the 
power it has since become and consisted of 
but a handful of men so divided that one 
part could not readily support the other. 
The country depended upon its volunteers 
in all cases of emergency, and as compared 

51 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

to the present day volunteers were few 
and far between, while proportionally the 
lines to be defended against enemies were 
much longer. There were then no means 
by which troops could be rapidly moved 
from point to point. There were no rail- 
roads, and in fact but few good roads of 
any kind. The country was, for the most 
part, covered by heavy forests, and troops 
were moved through these, or by means of the 
great streams that so enrich our land. Roads 
had to be made through the wilderness when 
the army moved by land, and numberless 
boats constructed when it went by water. 
Food centers were far apart, and supplies 
were transported over vast distances at ir- 
regular tinies ; thus, one of the greatest 
causes of suffering experienced by our sol- 
diers early in the nineteenth century was 
the lack of supplies and the danger of star- 
vation in a wild and hostile country. 

But if any man was able to foresee 
events and provide against circumstances, 
Andrew Jackson was that man. A picture 
52 



A FEUD 

of his energy is so well painted by the his- 
torian Parton that it is here inserted. 

"The loth of December was the day ap- 
pointed for the troops to rendezvous at Nash- 
ville. The climate of Tennessee, generally 
so pleasant, is liable to brief periods of severe 
cold. Twice within the memory of living 
persons the Cumberland has been frozen 
over at Nashville, and as often snow has 
fallen there to the depth of a foot. It so 
chanced that the day named for the assem- 
bling of the troops was the coldest that 
had been known at Nashville for many 
years, and there was deep snow on the 
ground. Such was the enthusiasm, however, 
of the volunteers that more than two thou- 
sand presented themselves on the appointed 
day. The general was no less puzzled than 
pleased by this alacrity. 

" Nashville was still little more than a 
large village, not capable of affording the 
merest shelter to such a concourse of sol- 
diers, who in any weather not extraor- 
dinary would have disdained a roof. There 

= S3 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

was no resource for the mass of the troops 
but to camp out. Fortunately, the quarter- 
master, Major William B. Lewis, had pro- 
vided a thousand cords of wood for the use 
of the men, a quantity that was supposed 
to be sufficient to last till they embarked. 
Every stick of wood was burned the first 
night in keeping the men from freezing. 
From dark until nearly daylight the general 
and the quartermaster were out among the 
troops, employed in providing for this un- 
expected and perilous exigency, seeing that 
drunken men were brought within reach of 
the fire, and that no drowsy sentinel slept 
the sleep of death." 

This expedition never reached New Or- 
leans, for at Natchez, on the Mississippi, 
Jackson received an order to disband his 
troops and return home. Then the peppery 
patriot overflowed with righteous anger. 
Here were the troops whom he had enlisted 
in good faith, five hundred miles from home. 
Were they to be disbanded and set adrift 
without pay ? It was a thing unheard of be- 
54 



A FEUD 

fore, and Jackson swore a great oath — 3. 
great many great oaths — that he would not 
desert his men even if the Government did. 
Fortunately there came an order to pay off 
the volunteers, and this was done, but the 
fiery commander was not yet satisfied ; he 
resolved to disobey the Government at 
Washington, and return the men to Nash- 
ville as he had taken them away — in a body. 
If the Government would not pay the ex- 
penses incurred, he would take the cost from 
his own pocket. 

The little army was dismayed at the new 
arrangement, but such was their faith in their 
chief that there were but few murmurs. 
Burdened by their one hundred and fifty sick, 
they took up the return march overland. 
There were but eleven wagons available for 
the disabled, and the general gave up his 
three horses to the sick, while he stalked on 
ahead of his men, somber and dignified, 
though angry clear through. His anger, 
however, was never directed against one of 
his soldiers. He cared for them like chil- 

55 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

dren and sacrificed for them all that lay in 
his power. Mile after mile he walked, never 
giving way to the fatigue he must have felt, 
and this persistence in advancing, his untir- 
ing and uncomplaining care of those about 
him who were ready to drop from exhaus- 
tion, earned for him the name of " Old 
Hickory," a tribute to his mental and phys- 
ical toughness. 

It ended by his bringing his troops home 
and dismissing them in the public square at 
Nashville, and the men went their ways full 
of enthusiasm for the general who had been 
ordered to lead them on what had been a 
fruitless errand in place of one filled with 
honor and glory. 

And the Government had not paid the ex- 
penses of the homeward march. Jackson had 
drawn bills against his own fortune to such 
an extent that he would have met flat ruin 
had he been obliged to pay them. He was 
saved from this by the active services of 
Colonel Thomas Benton, who commanded 
one of the regiments under Jackson. This 

56 



A FEUD 

name should be remembered, as the colonel 
cut a large figure in Jackson's subsequent life ; 
was first his friend, then his bitter enemy, 
and lastly his friend again. The colonel, 
who had gone to Washington, finally pre- 
vailed on the Secretary of War to look upon 
the expense of the homeward march as an 
expense upon the Government, and thus the 
general was relieved of the load of impend- 
ing ruin. Though an act of simple justice, 
it required a deal of skill and diplomacy to 
bring it about, and it was only accomplished 
by at last threatening the Administration with 
the loss of the support of the State of Ten- 
nessee. So are men's acts colored by their 
interests. 

Even while Benton was engaged in seek- 
ing relief for Jackson that gentleman was 
being drawn into trouble with Mr. Jesse 
Benton, a brother of the colonel. Jesse 
had a " difficulty " with one Colonel Car- 
roll, and, as was usual, the trouble between 
the two must be settled by a duel. The 
duel came off, Jackson acting as a second 

57 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

in the affair, but if the trouble was settled 
between the belligerents, it was not settled 
for Jackson. Benton was wounded, and at 
once complained to his brother, Thomas, of 
the unfairness of Jackson. What the charges 
were is not clear, but in the heat of his anger 
Jesse charged the general with much that 
must have been impossible. Colonel Ben- 
ton, who had just completed the work that 
saved Jackson from bankruptcy, turned 
against his old friend without inquiring into 
the rights or wrongs of the matter. The 
general, evidently justified in all he had done 
and with a clear conscience, stood upon his 
dignity and vouchsafed no explanation of 
his acts, and as no explanation was asked, 
the three hot heads soon became enemies, 
the two brothers siding together. 

The Bentons spared no pains in slander- 
ing the general and vilifying his character on 
all occasions. So gross did their accusations 
at last become that Jackson, who had been 
forbearing, finally threw aside all considera- 
tions of past services and friendship, and 

58 



A FEUD 

swore he would horsewhip Thomas Benton 
on sight. 

They met in Nashville. It was no duel 
this time, but it came very near being mur- 
der. Jackson, with his friend and partner, 
Coffee, who was now also a general, crossed 
the square to the hotel where the Bentons 
were stopping. Jackson carried a light ri- 
ding-whip in his hand, and as he approached 
he saw Thomas standing in the hotel entry, 
and near him was his brother, the cause 
of all the bad blood. Without apparently 
noticing either, Jackson walked on until 
nearly opposite the entry, then suddenly 
turning, strode to his erstwhile friend, and 
flourishing his whip, he exclaimed : 

*' Now, you d rascal, I'm going to 

punish you ! Defend yourself ! " 

Thomas started and made as if to draw a 
pistol from his breast pocket, but as quick 
as a flash Jackson, anticipating the act, drew 
his own and presented it, at which Benton 
retreated down the hallway, Jackson follow- 
ing and threatening him with both pistol 

59 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

and whip. Coffee remained behind. Jesse 
Benton, fearing for his brother's life, drew 
his pistol and ran after the two in the hall. 
Coming up just as Jackson had penned 
Thomas in a corner, he aimed point-blank at 
the general, and fired. The pistol was loaded 
with a slug and two bullets ; one of the 
balls flew wide of the mark and struck the 
wall, but the other ball and the slug took ef- 
fect ; one hit Jackson on the left arm and 
the other buried itself in his shoulder, shat- 
tering the bone and producing a fearful 
wound. 

Jackson fell with a groan, and Coffee, 
hearing the explosion, came running in. Be- 
lieving his friend had been shot by Thomas 
Benton, Coffee drew his pistol and fired, 
missing his aim ; then reversing the weapon, 
he was about to strike down the innocent 
man when Benton suddenly disappeared, 
having fallen down the cellar stairs, thinking 
that the door through which he had retreated 
led into a room. 

Jackson, bleeding fearfully and com- 
60 



A FEUD 

pletely prostrated, was carried tenderly to 
his hotel, while the two brothers openly ex- 
ulted in their victory by breaking, in the 
public square, the light sword the general 
had worn, and which had been dropped in 
the fray. Every gentleman wore a sword in 
those days, not so much for a weapon as a 
badge of respectability. 

It was years before Thomas Benton saw 
Jackson again and again became his friend, 
during the latter's second term as President 
of the United States. Jesse never forgave 
the general, nor did he forgive his brother 
for forgetting his old hatred, but showed his 
animosity in every possible way, which ways, 
however, were impotent to injure the objects 
aimed at. 



61 



CHAPTER VI 

IN THE FIELD 

It was three weeks before the wounded 
man was able to sit up, and then was con- 
fined to his room. He probably was not a 
lovely companion during this interval. For 
a man of his temper, to be maimed, defeated, 
and housed, was anything but a sedative. 
He had come very near to losing his arm, if 
not his life ; and when the doctors in attend- 
ance told him that his arm must come off, 
with characteristic determination and brevity 
he remarked that he would go to the grave 
with his arm on, and with the assistance of a 
single young surgeon who disagreed with his 
brother practitioners, the arm was saved, 
though, like the wound in the general's chest, 
it troubled him long after it had healed. 
The ball remained unextracted for twenty 
years. 

62 



IN THE FIELD 

In the interval af Jackson's sickness great 
events had happened, and the mind of the 
community was filled, as it is rarely filled, 
nowadays. At that time the world was look- 
ing at France, and looking, saw Napoleon 
defeated at Waterloo and tumbled, for the 
second time, from his self-raised throne. At 
home the young nation was applauding 
Perry, who had successfully opposed the 
English fleet on Lake Erie, and shouting 
their hurrahs at Harrison, who had come off 
victorious in an encounter with an Indian 
force under the celebrated Tecumseh. These 
were great matters — great to the country at 
large, but like a thunderclap there came on 
August 30, 1 81 3, an event that electrified 
the Southwest, overshadowing all other con- 
siderations and sending Jackson into a fury 
of impatience. 

This was the news that Fort Mimms, in 
the southwestern part of what is now Ala- 
bama, had been surprised by the Creek 
Indians, and of its 550 inmates, consisting 
of men, women and children, and a few sol- 

63 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

diers and negroes, 400 were ruthlessly mas- 
sacred ; it is recorded that not a single white 
woman or child escaped. A few of the gar- 
rison got into the woods, but there died of 
starvation or their wounds, and quite a num- 
ber of negroes were spared only to be made 
slaves of by the red man. A negress escaped 
to Lake Tensaw, and in a canoe or on a float- 
ing log, it is uncertain which, brought the 
news of the massacre to Fort Stoddart, pad- 
dling a distance of fifteen miles, though 
wounded and carrying a musket-ball in her 
breast. 

So wild was the country, so hostile and 
without the means of rapid communication 
with civilization, it was fifteen days before 
the news of the disaster reached Nashville. 
There was but one sentiment throughout the 
country ; the Indians must be punished, the 
remaining settlers protected. This was the 
beginning of what is known as the " Creek 
War," for it was that nation whose violence 
and atrocities had rendered the extreme 
South well-nigh uninhabitable for the white 

64 



IN THE FIELD 

settler. It was really part and parcel with 
the then existing war with England, for 
England had furnished the savages with 
rum, arms, and ammunition, and influenced 
them against the whites. Under the leader- 
ship of a renegade named Weathersford, a 
brave but unscrupulous man, the Indians bid 
fair to exterminate every white from New 
Orleans to the State of Georgia, as far north 
as Tennessee ; the little settlement of Mobile 
was in imminent danger of being wiped from 
the earth. And throughout this vast region 
families fled in terror to the nearest forts or 
stockades — flimsy protections at best, and 
waited in fear and trembling for their turn 
to feed the thirsty tomahawk. 

The South was in an uproar. Napoleon 
was forgotten and Perry and Harrison sunk 
in the shade before the near and appalling 
danger of an Indian invasion. The legisla- 
tors assembled at once and acted at once. 
They did not wait for assistance from the 
central Government, but before the news of 
the great outrage had reached New York, it 

65 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

taking more than four weeks to get that dis- 
tance, it was ordered that thirty-five hundred 
men, under the general entitled to command 
them, should be despatched to the Indian 
country to overawe the hostiles, punish 
the murderers, gather together the friendly 
tribes, and so hold the country until the 
United States Government had time to act. 
The order was to go into effect at once. 

And the general entitled to command, 
and who was standing on the threshold of 
his real greatness (he had only been promi- 
nent or notorious before), was confined to 
his room, propped up in his chair and unable 
to bear the weight of his coat. Did he fret, 
fume, and swear ? He did all three, but he 
did more ; he acted as though his body was 
as well as his brain. Before the ink on the 
pen, which, held in the Governor's hand, 
signed the order of the Legislature and made 
it valid, had time to dry, General Jackson 
had issued his orders directing the troops to 
rendezvous at Fayetteville, a little village on 
the northern borders of Alabama. In a foot- 

66 



IN THE FIELD 

note to these orders was a terse and astonish- 
ing notice to the effect that the health of the 
commanding general had been restored. 

Restored ! He could not get on his horse 
without assistance ; he could not wear a 
sleeve on the wounded arm, which he carried 
in a sling. Yellow from fever, weak as a 
child, and emaciated to the last degree, he 
looked like an animated corpse as he set out 
for Fayetteville, a journey, for him, of three 
days. A doctor went with him and the stops 
for necessary rests were very frequent ; in- 
deed, it seemed that the indomitable will of 
the man must succumb under his physical 
distresses. But he bore up as few others 
would have done, and finally began to im- 
prove in health. This was the real Andrew 
Jackson; a man who never surrendered in 
act or word until he laid down before the 
last great enemy, death ; then his life had 
been filled, his ambitions satisfied. 

The campaign against the Creeks was a 
vigorous one, but the greatest enemy with 
which the little army had to contend was 

67 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

starvation. There was no lack of food ready 
to be forwarded, but there was a great lack of 
means by which it could be sent to the men 
fighting afield, or rather, through a howling 
wilderness. Much, and indeed most, of the 
supplies were intended to reach Jackson by 
way of the Tennessee River, but the con- 
tractors did not figure on the possible low- 
ness of the water, due to summer's drought, 
and when a large quantity of flour, of which 
the men were greatly in need, had been 
drawn miles through the forest to a point 
where it was to be sent down the stream to 
Fort Deposit, where Jackson's hungry army 
was impatiently waiting for it, it was discov- 
ered that the river was no longer navigable 
owing to low water and the stores remained 
where they were, the contractors determin- 
ing to wait until the fall rains set in and 
deepened the channel. In the meantime the 
men for whom the supplies were intended 
went on short rations and watched the river 
in vain, though hoping that each hour would 
bring the little fleet. 

68 



IN THE FIELD 

Jackson, made desperate by the delay, 
moved his army up-stream and fortified a 
camp, calling it Fort Strother, and then 
learning that a large force of Creeks were 
laying siege to a band of friendly Indians who 
were penned in a stockade, he determined 
to push ahead with his famished army and 
relieve those who were calling on him for 
assistance. Not only was it necessary to 
succor his red allies, who were completely 
surrounded and nearly dying from thirst, but 
it was necessary to then and there strike a 
blow at the Creeks, who were proclaiming 
the cowardice of the whites as shown in their 
supposed fear of penetrating far into the 
Indian country. Coffee, Jackson's friend 
and partner in business, was sent off in an 
opposite direction with a force of some five 
hundred mounted men, for the purpose of 
foraging for themselves and destroying such 
of the enemy's strongholds and villages as 
they came across ; and thus relieved of a 
portion of the drain on his diminished com- 
missary, Jackson, with less than scanty pro- 
6 69 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

visions for two days, took up a line of march 
through the thick and gloomy forest. So 
rapid were his movements, so sudden was his 
descent, that the hostiles, who had been sure 
of their prey, were taken entirely by sur- 
prise and fled howling in every direction. 
The lately beleaguered Indians were loud in 
their thanks, and when they had slaked their 
thirst they showered the victors with tokens 
of their gratitude. 



70 



CHAPTER VII 

A MUTINY 

But gratitude fills no stomachs and the 
savages brought no food for the famishing 
soldiers ; indeed, they were themselves fam- 
ishing. Back marched the army, hoping that 
supplies had reached the camp they had re- 
cently left, but on arriving discovered that 
not a mouthful had come ; that even the sick 
and wounded who had been left behind were 
in immediate danger of starvation. At this 
time matters looked black. There was not 
a single remaining biscuit belonging to the 
army, though the general had a few provi- 
sions which he had obtained and had trans- 
ported at his own expense. At this trying 
period he placed the whole at the disposal of 
the sick, and though it did not go far, it was 
something. He, himself, went to the slaugh- 
ter-pen, and from the entrails of the animals 

71 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

recently killed selected such parts as could 
be turned into food, remarking that the 
whole made tripe, and that tripe was a whole- 
some and delicious article of diet. This he 
set the example of eating, and he had to eat 
it unseasoned. It could not have been a 
very delectable dish, but it kept life within 
the body and reduced the pangs of hunger. 
Through all he was jocular, but it was forced 
fun. On the verge of physical collapse and 
with a heart made sick by hope deferred, 
Jackson moved among the sick and well like 
an exponent of strength, and yet he was a 
broken reed in all but grit and determina- 
tion. In secret he groaned in despair and 
spent the hours when he should have been 
sleeping in writing pitiful letters to those who 
might have it in their power to ameliorate 
the condition of his famishing and now al- 
most rebellious army. 

Apparently neglected by the home Gov- 
ernment, rendered inactive by the lack of 
supplies, and surrounded by an enemy as 
stealthy as he was merciless, men murmured 
72 



A MUTINY 

until the murmurs became loud — so loud that 
they could not be misunderstood by the gen- 
eral, who, for a season, shut his ears to them. 
Not the least of the trouble was homesick- 
ness, or, as the doctors say, nostalgia, a dis- 
ease, if it can be called a disease, not confined 
to the young, as some suppose. Starvation 
and homesickness are two strong factors that 
stand in the way of duty, for they sap the 
spirits while they render desperate their vic- 
tims ; either one is bad enough, but together 
they made a force that taxed the powers of 
even Andrew Jackson. 

And the end of the matter would have 
been ludicrous had not the nature of the 
trouble been so serious. It seems that there 
were two kinds of troops under Jackson, the 
militia and the volunteers. Both bodies were 
equally anxious to return to civilization, see 
their families, get properly fed, and wait a 
more auspicious time to war against the 
Creeks. No man needed food and rest more 
than Jackson ; no man would have enjoyed 
them more, but his far sight told him that if 

73 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

he retreated, it would look like cowardice to 
the hostiles, who would follow, greatly en- 
couraged, and in all probability would carry 
their depredations inside the borders of Ten- 
nessee. All that had been gained would be 
lost immediately ; the friendly tribes, im- 
pressed by the act of apparent desertion, 
would join the hostiles to a man, and the 
campaign would have proved a failure. 

Failure ! The word determined the fiery 
old war-horse (old at the age of forty-eight), 
and he resolved to stay even if he staid alone. 
He hoped, however, that the grumbling 
would not break out in open rebellion, but he 
was ready when it did. 

And it did. The militia began it. With 
their determination winked at by many of 
their officers, they resolved to march home in 
a body, starting early in the morning after 
the decision. But they failed to reckon with 
their commander. Jackson, who knew per- 
fectly well what was going on under his 
long nose, was up early that day, and when 
the militia were about to start they were 

74 



A MUTINY 

astonished to find the volunteers drawn 
across their road with their general at their 
head. Jackson made a spirited address in 
which were some dire threats, but the mat- 
ter ended by the militia returning to their 
duties. 

Now this did not half suit the volunteers, 
who had hoped their brothers in arms would 
insist, and thereby open the way for their own 
escape. Their complaints were not loud, but 
they were sincere, and hardly had they re» 
turned from their too successful mission of 
turning back the militia, when they, them- 
selves, determined to march homeward the 
following day. 

All this was flat mutiny, and, according to 
the laws of war, punishable with' death, but 
the general well knew the terrible stress 
under which his men labored, and instead of 
even degrading the ringleaders, he concen- 
trated his efforts on preventing the crime. 
When the volunteers emerged from camp at 
the dawn of the next day, they found that 
their lately erring companions were now 

75 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

drawn across the track, with Jackson, his lame 
arm yet in a sling, at their head. 

The general was in a rage ; his face was 
red, his eyes flashed, what some said was blue 
fire, and his grizzled hair stood on end like 
fur on the back of an angry cat. He fairly 
roared at his disaffected troops, and his wrath 
was as fearful as it was unrestrained. The 
column halted, but after a moment's hesita- 
tion, attempted to advance. At this, with 
his serviceable arm, Jackson snatched a mus- 
ket from a soldier standing near, and rising 
m his stirrups, shook it as he shouted : 

** By the immaculate God ! I will shoot 
the first man that offers to go forward ! " 

And he would have done it ; what is more, 
the wavering men knew he was ready and 
willing. It is stated by some who were wit- 
nesses of the scene that one look into the 
eyes of the thin, yellow man sitting on horse- 
back was enough to turn the most foolhardy 
of the mutineers. The men remained halted, 
no one caring to be the first to meet a bullet 
backed by such wrath ; it was worse than 

76 



A MUTINY 

gunpowder. Again Jackson implored his 
men to come to their senses, and threatened 
them if they should not. The front rank 
hung their heads abashed, the rear began to 
slink back to camp, and in a short time order 
came out of rebellion. Ere many days passed 
food was again plentiful and the spirit of the 
army was restored. 

And this through the might, spirit, and 
insistence of one man. He had written, he 
had implored, he had threatened, and in the 
end was ready to fight in the line of duty — 
to fight single-handed. One man, crippled, 
sick, and well-nigh heartbroken at the out- 
look, had managed through pure determina- 
tion to subdue a horde of hungry, homesick, 
and desperate troopers who were so far bent 
upon outraging their oaths as to risk the 
death of traitors, but who were driven back 
to empty dishes and duty by impassioned 
words and a musket, the latter, it was after- 
ward found, being so far out of repair as to 
be useless as a firearm. 

But it was neither the words nor the 

77 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

musket that was potent It was the spirit 
of the general — the eyes flashing blue fire — 
the man. 

Thus ended the trouble caused by starva- 
tion, but the waters were calm for but a short 
time. Presently a whole regiment rebelled 
because the time for which the men enlisted 
was out. Jackson suppressed this difficulty 
as he had done the other — by force of arms, 
training his field-pieces on the rebellious body, 
but for a while it looked as though the whole 
army would revolt. Fourteen hundred 
marched home at last (as they had a right to 
do), despite the fact that their commander 
implored them to remain for but a few days 
and strike another blow at the Indians, who 
were growing bolder and bolder in the face 
of the inactive army, and who had been suc- 
cessful in surprising and causing the retreat 
of a few disconnected parties, who, com- 
manded by unskilful officers, had gone on ex- 
cursions against them. Beyond his words 
Jackson placed nothing in the way of this 
desertion, and by the following February 

78 



A MUTINY 

the entire force was on the eve of dissolu- 
tion. It seemed that the cause for which the 
white men fought was doomed to defeat. 
The British were exultant, and had it not 
been for Jackson's bulldog tenacity of pur- 
pose, the war in the Southwest would have 
ended there and then, for the Governor of 
Tennessee, advised by many prominent men, 
was about to recall the State troops and leave 
the contest to be carried on by the central 
Government. 

In all probability, this would have led to 
certain ruin ; certainly it would have forever 
quenched Jackson's military light, a light 
which was just beginning to glow. In a 
desperate state of mind he retired to his tent 
and wrote to the Governor, and what he 
wrote evidently struck the Governor very 
hard. For one thing, it convinced him that 
he had been wrongly advised, and instead of 
giving up the fight, he ordered a levy of 
fresh men to take the places of those who 
had returned home, and at once a new spirit 
became manifest throughout the entire State. 

79 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

That letter probably saved the Southwest ; it 
probably led to the later battle of New Or- 
leans, and it surely was the buoy which floated 
Andrew Jackson to the crest of the wave of 
popularity and brought success from what 
had appeared the blackest failure. Jackson 
was a good talker, but when he wrote with 
his heart in his subject, he wrote with a pen 
of fire ; and though he lacked in style and 
correctness, these imperfections were lost in 
the force of his reasoning and the impassioned 
eloquence of his words. As a result of this 
letter, instead of orders to retreat came the 
information that nearly four thousand Ten- 
nesseeans were on their way to join him. Soon 
after he was strengthened by a part of his old 
friend Coffee's brigade of mounted men — 
tried soldiers and true — and to cap the climax 
of good fortune, there came six hundred 
troops of the regular army. Several tribes 
of friendly Indians now threw their fortunes 
with the increasing army, and in a few weeks 
Jackson, instead of tamely retiring from the 
field, was ready to strike the blow that fin- 
80 



A MUTINY 

ished the Creek War and boosted him into a 
prominence from which he never descended. 
This was the battle of the ** Horseshoe." 



81 



CHAPTER VIII 

TAHOPEKA 

About midway from the source of the 
Tallapoosa River and its mouth,where, joined 
by the Coosa, it forms the Alabama, there 
occurs a bend which was known by the 
whites as the ** Horseshoe " on account of 
the shape and regularity of its curve ; the 
Indians called it Tahopeka. The river here 
is both wide and deep, the stream in its 
majestic sweep almost enclosing a section of 
land of about one hundred acres, the narrow 
part being a trifle over one thousand feet 
across. This beautiful river-made peninsula 
was in the very heart of the hostile country 
and the land for one hundred and fifty miles 
around was a virgin forest. 

Here ran the wild deer almost unmo- 
lested ; here, also, lurked the wolf and the 
panther, and in the black fastnesses of the 
82 



TAHOPEKA 

swamps hid the deadly fer-de-lance and his 
hideous companion, the water moccasin. 
Threaded through the everlasting twilight or 
darkness of the moss-draped forest lay the 
trails of the savages, paths of hardly more 
than three spans in width but worn to the 
depth of from six inches to a foot by the 
tread of countless generations of red men. 
These trails were admirable roads for small 
foot parties and the spy, but were useless for 
troops encumbered with artillery and bag- 
gage. 

To Tahopeka, or the Horseshoe, came 
the Creeks, and with fine military instinct 
they determined to fortify the ground which 
had been so arranged by nature as to present 
but one point of attack by land, that through 
the narrow part, or between the heels of the 
horseshoe. Here they collected some one 
thousand warriors — the flower of their nation 
— and three hundred^ or more, women and 
children. Then they began to build. 

On the rather high bluff of the river-bank 
at the toe of the loop they erected their 

83 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

wigwams and bark houses, and then across 
the neck of the peninsula they threw up a 
high and strong breastwork of logs and 
earth. Behind this was a thick covert of 
brushwood and fallen timber to which they 
could retire if driven in from the front, while 
still in the rear came the forest which covered 
the greater part of the enclosed area. It 
was not a fort but it was a very formidable 
work and one to do credit to any engineer. 

And here, armed with rifles and the 
hardly less deadly weapon at short range, the 
bow and flint-headed arrow, the Creeks 
waited for Jackson's appearance, for they 
had heard that he was about to make a clean 
sweep of the Creek Indian, not only to 
defeat the aim of the British, but to forever 
subdue the savages of the Southwest and 
open up the country for safe settlement by 
Americans. If Britain was not to directly 
suffer from this campaign her allies were, for 
they were to be wiped out or rendered harm- 
less. Such was Jackson's plan. 

And so the fortified savages lurked and 

84 



TAHOPEEA 

waited, sending out their spies to watch the 
movements of the coming whites and evi- 
dently receiving much satisfaction at hearing 
of the difficulties that beset the advancing 
army. 

And the difficulties were many. Jackson 
was eleven days going from Fort Strother 
to the Horseshoe, for it was no little work 
to cut roads and bridge streams so that his 
supplies could follow ; he did not purpose 
going through another starvation experience, 
and that, too, in the face of a desperate 
enemy so sure of victory that they looked 
for no further line of retreat than was 
afforded by the lovely river running on their 
flanks and rear. 

It may well be supposed that the general 
was cautious. He heard with lively satisfac- 
tion that the bulk of his foe had cooped 
themselves on one spot. From his friendly 
Indian runners and spies he heard of the 
great strength of the log wall which stretched 
clear across the neck of land, and probably 
sighed for the men who were to face it when 
7 85 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

told that it was pierced with two sets of 
loopholes and so arranged that the troops 
must receive the enemy's fire on the flanks 
as well as on the front. He looked to his 
two little field-pieces to batter down this 
wall, but, as will be seen, he looked in vain. 
The best piece of news he received was that 
the Creeks had failed to make any provision 
to defend the bank over the river in the rear 
of their position. It was true that the foot 
of the bluff was lined with canoes into which 
the Indians might escape if driven from their 
stronghold, but no line of retreat had been 
protected, and, indeed, the Creeks thought 
not of retreat ; to them victory was already 
theirs and their belts were already heavy 
with the prospective scalps of American 
soldiers. 

Neither did the Americans dream of 
being defeated, and for their confidence they 
had better reasons than the red man. First, 
deducting the several bodies of men detailed 
to hold open the road he had made, Jackson 
had a force of two thousand against the one 
86 



TAHOPEKA 

thousand fighting savages hemmed in by 
their own work. Two to one are heavy 
odds, and the general saw that the Indians 
had constructed their own slaughter-pen. 
His army was made up of two sorts of 
soldiers : one, the tried veterans who had 
stuck to him through all discouragements ; 
the other, new men of the best Tennessee 
families, who were woodsmen by instinct (as 
nearly every man was in those days), and 
who had not been reduced by starvation or 
demoralized by forced and tedious inactivity. 
Moreover, supplies were plentiful, each man 
having close at hand full rations for twenty 
days, and to cap these advantages were the 
two cannon. These were no great arm in 
themselves, they being but three and six 
pounders, but nothing was so demoralizing 
to a savage as cannon, the noise of the re- 
port appalling him and the crash of a cannon 
shot of more avail than the ball itself. 

With this little army were men who, as 

yet obscure, were destined to become famous. 

? Davy Crockett, the future hero of the Alamo, 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

was there, a rollicking, daredevil youth, who 
a few years later was to be the last man to 
fall in the Alamo massacre at San Antonio, 
when Texas was fighting for her independ- 
ence from Mexico. Here also was Sam 
Houston, who, next to Jackson himself, be- 
came the most talked of man in the country. 
He, too, gained his fame in Texas by defeat- 
ing Santa Anna, the prime mover in the 
Alamo outrage. But to-day Houston is only 
an ensign in his regiment — a strapping young 
man clad like an Indian, a man to whom 
fear was a word the meaning of which he 
knew nothing. 

When Jackson reached the famous Talla- 
poosa bend he halted and took a survey of 
the defenses. His quick, military eye easily 
determined the weak spot in the plan of the 
savages, and calling up his old friend. Gen- 
eral Coffee, who commanded all the mounted 
men and a tribe of friendly Indians, he sent 
him down the river with his force, ordering 
him to ford the stream two miles below, and 
creep up the opposite bank until abreast of 
88 



TAHOPEKA 

the toe of the Horseshoe. He was to let his 
arrival be known through a messenger. 

While Coffee was on his way as direct- 
ed, Jackson hauled his artillery to a point 
of vantage near the wall, and then quietly 
waited. 

It was late in March. The live-oaks were 
green, the flowers were blooming, the sun 
was warm and pleasant, and there was little 
about the land to remind one of the bleak 
early spring of the North. Birds chirped and 
flew about, ignorant of the convulsion that 
was soon to jar the silent air. Not a sound 
was heard. Outside in the forest lay two 
thousand men ready to leap up at the word 
of command, inside were concealed one 
thousand savages thirsting for blood and 
scalps, the horrid war-whoop on the tip of 
every tongue. Every gun was cocked, a 
finger trembled on every trigger, and many a 
notched arrow lay at rest ready to be shot 
from the tightened bow. 

Presently came the word that Coffee had 
reached his position unobserved, and at once 

89 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

Jackson ordered the bombardment to begin. 
Then upon the air there broke the thunder 
of the two cannon, and the affrighted birds 
wheeled in their flight and plunged into the 
depths of the forest. 

The first ball buried itself in the soft pal- 
metto logs, as did the second and third ; so 
did all of them, in fact, and the savages 
behind the strong barricade whooped in 
mingled delight and derision. There was no 
sign of a breach — nor a sign that one would 
be made — and both officers and men be- 
sought the general to order an assault. But 
this Jackson hesitated to do, not wishing to 
sacrifice the lives necessary to such an under- 
taking ; however, he stationed his riflemen in 
trees at close range, and many a savage be- 
hind the wall fell under their skilful fire. 
Thus the general waited for an auspicious 
moment to send a mass of troops against 
the enemy. 



90 



CHAPTER IX 

THE END OF THE CREEKS 

And the moment soon came. Coffee 
from the safe haven of the opposite bank 
heard the thunder of the guns and chafed at 
his inactivity, probably thinking there was but 
little glory in cutting off the escape of a beaten 
enemy, should it come to that, while his com- 
panions in arms were risking their lives. He 
knew by the sound of derisive shouting and 
the dropping fire of rifles that not much was 
being accomplished in front, and soon re- 
solved to take an active hand in the battle 
on his own account. 

First he ordered the best swimmers among 
his Indian allies to cross the river and cut 
away and bring back all the canoes that 
swung at the foot of the bluff ; he could see 
that the enemy, not having a suspicion of a 
force in their rear, had left their fleet un- 

91 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

guarded. Coffee's act was for a twofold pur- 
pose, one of which was to keep the Creeks 
from escaping if they were beaten. The 
move was perfectly successful, not a man or 
canoe being lost, and he was now ready to 
become more aggressive. He ordered Colo- 
nel Morgan and his famous riflemen to take 
the stolen canoes, cross over, set fire to the 
Indian village, and attack the foe at the 
breastworks in the rear. This, too, was suc- 
cessful, and soon, by the smoke rising from 
the burning huts as well as by the distant 
shots Jackson saw that a timely diversion had 
been effected, and, as it quickly became ap- 
parent that Morgan was being driven back 
by force of numbers, he ordered a general 
assault on the wall. 

The order was received with a shout, and 
the men, leaping up, pressed forward. Many 
fell under the terrible fire that met them, but 
the rest forced their way up to the very loop- 
holes, and thrusting in their rifles, played 
havoc with the defenders. But the whites 
paid dearly for their bravery. The Creeks 
92 



THE END OF THE CREEKS 

rallied to the wall and cut them down with a 
return fire ; indeed, so sharp was the contest 
that two rifles were often thrust through the 
same loophole but in opposite directions and 
both contestants fell dead under a simultane- 
ous explosion. It soon became plain that 
the wall could only be carried by climbing 
its height ; and again the men swept forward. 
Curses, shouts, and the blood-curdling 
war-whoop now filled the air. Rifles cracked, 
balls whistled, and the deadly bowstring 
twanged its sharp note of death. Running 
men fell, and the living tripped over them, 
but onward went the assaulters, this time 
to top the wall or die at the foot of it. 
Major Montgomery, of the Thirty-ninth 
Regiment, was the first man to reach the crest 
of the defense, but at once fell dead with a 
ball through his brain. The second man 
was Ensign Houston, who received a barbed 
arrow in his thigh before he had fairly gained 
the top, but he was soon joined by a host of 
others and the ramparts were cleared, the 
savages falling back to the cover and the 

93 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

forest and fighting for each foot of ground 
with a stubbornness that was wonderful. 
But stubbornness only delayed the fatal mo- 
ment, and, as had been foreseen by Jackson, 
the battle became a slaughter, for the In- 
dians, fearing torture if captured, asked for 
no quarter and gave none. A wounded Indian 
was nearly as dangerous as one unhurt. To 
approach him with a humane desire to relieve 
his thirst or sufferings was to meet with death, 
if the means of causing death were at his hand. 
A wounded white might have appealed to 
a rattlesnake about to strike with as fair 
an expectancy of having mercy shown him. 
Down came the merciless tomahawk, and 
off came the reeking scalp ere there was time 
for a prayer. Thus the cry soon became "No 
prisoners, no mercy." It was a battle in 
which the result for each side was to be 
victory or death. 

This condition of things was due to the 
Indian prophets, who, by means of fantastic 
dress and more fantastic rites, had made the 
great bulk of the savages believe that they, 

94 



THE END OF THE CREEKS 

the prophets, had been gifted by the Great 
Spirit above all men. They averred that a 
surrounding magic defended them from the 
bullet of the white man, and foretold a great 
victory over the invaders. They assured the 
warriors that for a brave to die fighting 
was a warrant for everlasting happiness ; he 
would be at once ushered into the ** happy 
hunting-ground," where would be found his 
squaw, his wigwam, his gun, and bliss 
evermore. To be taken prisoner was to be 
slowly tortured by the whites, and in this case 
death would not open an immediate Elysium. 

And the simple children of the forest be- 
lieved these things and pinned their faith on 
the words of the undoubted tricksters. No 
wonder the savages fought like fiends. A 
white scalp was a passport to glory on earth ; 
death, to a glory greater by far. 

And so they struggled. From tree to 
tree they flitted like dusky ghosts. From 
behind each trunk a bullet flew, each bush 
sent out a spurt of flame, but backward rolled 
the war-whoop as backward under the pres- 

95 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

sure of the trained soldiers the diminishing 
Indians were forced, and when finally the de- 
feated savages broke for the river they came 
face to face with the fact that their village 
was in flames, their canoes gone, and the way 
of escape closed. Men, women, and children 
were massed in terrible confusion, but ever 
the white man's rifle-bullet fell among them 
and mere defeat became maddening despera- 
tion. 

But there was no surrender. Scores of 
Indians plunged into the current, essaying to 
swim across, but they were met by a storm 
of shot from the other side, and their lifeless 
carcasses turned over and sank, or floated 
down the stream. How many died this way 
no mortal knows, but two hundred was con- 
sidered a modest computation; a tufted head 
became a mark for many rifles, and few, if 
any, found safety by swimming. 

At last a number of the defeated savages 
took refuge in a thick clump of tangled de- 
bris and fallen timber at a point on the 
river's bank, and for hours foiled all attempts 

96 





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W 










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1 



Scores of Indians plunged into the current. 



THE END OF THE CREEKS 

to remove them. They were perfectly shel- 
tered, and though they might finally be 
starved out, Jackson had no time for siege 
tactics. The gallant Houston, who had torn 
the barbed arrow from his thigh and roughly 
bound up the wound, attempted to lead a 
few volunteers into this stronghold, but at 
the first discharge of shots by the hidden foe 
he fell with two bullets in his shoulder, and 
was borne off totally disabled. The attack 
failed. The position could not be forced by 
assault without a terrible loss of life, and it 
was finally determined to burn the Indians 
from their lair. Fire was set to the mass of 
brush, and as it became too hot to hold them, 
the savages, one by one, took to the river 
only to meet the fate of their companions, 
being mercilessly shot as they appeared. 
One old chief, of all, escaped. With a head 
full of ready invention, and cool, withal, he 
forced the pith from a reed, and lying under 
water close to the shore, breathed through 
the hollow stem until dark and then swam 
the stream in safety. 

97 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

A terrible night followed this terrible 
day. Lurking savages, hidden beneath piles 
of slain, lay in wait for an opportunity to es- 
cape, or, failing in this, to send one more 
soldier to a sudden and unexpected death. 
Numbers of them were unearthed by parties 
detailed to gather and bury the dead, and 
even at this hopeless pass the discovered 
savage would not surrender, but had to be 
shot. In the morning great numbers were 
found hidden in nooks and corners or sham- 
ming death in the open ; refusing to submit, 
they, too, were shot, and so helped to fill the 
long list of the slain. Five hundred and 
fifty-seven Indians were found dead on the 
peninsula, which had been a veritable trap 
for them, and with those killed while at- 
tempting to cross the stream, over seven 
hundred of the one thousand had been sent 
to their long home. Among the dead were 
found three prophets dressed in their out- 
landish rig, stricken down by the bullets 
they had declared harmless. Jackson's loss, 
though severe, was as nothing in comparison 

98 



THE END OF THE CREEKS 

to that of the Creeks. Fifty-five of the 
troops were killed outright and one hundred 
and forty-six were wounded more or less 
severely. The dead soldiers were sunk in 
the deepest part of the river so that no re- 
turning savage could get at their scalps, and 
with his wounded men on hastily constructed 
litters, Jackson, instead of stopping to rest, 
began a retrograde movement toward his 
source of supplies, with the intention of at 
once pushing his force into what the savages 
called their " holy ground," a section of the 
country on which, they said, no white man 
could walk and live. 

But the white man did walk there, nor 
did he die from the effect. By the time our 
fiery general had reached the so-called sacred 
land, the war was over; the savages dispersed 
before he caught sight of them. Their spirit 
was broken, their nation crushed. Since 
the war began fully one-half of their fighting 
force had been killed, the rest were scattered, 
and, like most hunted men, ready to make 
terms at any cost. Some few of the refugees 

99 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

made their way to Florida, where they after- 
ward created trouble, but were finally beaten 
by the same general. Jackson, or **old Jack," 
became a terrible name to the Indians ; it was 
of as much potency as a battery of artillery. 
With Jackson as leader, a fight against the 
whites was looked upon as hopeless. 

Soon the beaten chiefs began to come in, 
hoping to make their peace with the great 
general, but the great general now looked at 
the fawning savages with a scowl and sternly 
ordered them to the North, where they would 
be dealt with according to their deserts. 
Thus the great Southwest was cleared, and 
cleared forever, of hostile Indians. Settlers 
soon poured in, and the dark forests fell 
under their bright axes; the sun shone on 
land that for centuries had never known its 
smile, and Nature's frown left her face ; Jack- 
son had kept his word. 

The Southwest was not only clear, but 

was secure. One could now travel from 

Nashville overland to New Orleans and 

never hear a war-whoop or fear an ambush. 

loo 



THE END OF THE CREEKS 

Previous to this one could only reach the 
coast in safety by means of the great rivers, 
and this was a long and devious route. 



lOl 



CHAPTER X 

FORT BOWYER 

It is probable that the reader pictures 
Jackson as, with recovered health, lending his 
new vigor to the troops and urging them on 
with drawn sword, flashing eye, and ringing 
voice. But there was nothing of that kind. 
Jackson's general health seemed permanently 
broken. Even during his most strenuous 
moments he was a physical wreck, and 
looked it — looked it so completely that stran- 
gers seeing him for the first time were 
aghast. It was difficult for them to couple 
such energy of mind and action with his al- 
most tottering skeleton. Only on horseback 
did he partly hide his infirmities and appear 
like a man. He had not recovered from the 
wounds given by Jesse Benton ; he never 
did wholly recover from them. Every move- 
ment was guarded, though sometimes, in the 
102 



FORT BOWYER 

excitement of heated action, he so far forgot 
himself as to make a free gesture or violent 
motion, and the resultant pain so sickened 
him that he would almost faint and fall from 
his horse. He was miserably weak, pitifully 
thin, and so yellow from the malaria of the 
swamp-infested districts through which he 
had moved that his face looked like parch- 
ment. Moreover^ he was afflicted with an 
intestinal trouble that had become chronic, 
and which, in its sharper attacks, made him 
as thoroughly helpless as a newly born in- 
fant. In these paroxysms the pain was ex- 
quisite, and even to him unbearable. His 
only medicine was weak gin and water, and 
when within the active grip of this malady 
his only relief was in sitting astride a chair 
and letting his arms dangle over its back. 
Somehow this eased him after a time. 
When, on a march through the forest, he 
was suddenly stricken, and no chair was 
within an hundred miles, he had a growing 
sapling bent to the ground, and throwing his 
arms over this, he hung for hours, groaning 
103 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

in agony until the attack passed. Added to 
this list of infirmities there was one which 
he might have controlled. He was an in- 
veterate user of tobacco, smoking with the 
utmost regularity the long pipes of which he 
always kept a supply on hand, and chewing 
to excess. The result of this overindulged 
habit was to permanently impair his diges- 
tion and occasion such terrible headaches as 
to prostrate him. It is not recorded that he 
fought against this miserable appetite, but if 
he did he failed to conquer it ; he smoked 
and chewed till the last. 

But his pains, his weakness, his bodily 
disabilities, never for an instant affected his 
purposes. How many men would have 
pressed forward into a hostile and well-nigh 
unknown country under these circumstances ? 
Andrew Jackson's body never accomplished 
much ; it did not rule him entirely, as some 
men's bodies rule them ; but his brain, his 
spirit, and what is termed his " clear grit," 
were factors which influenced not only his 
physique but directed the minds and bodies 
104 



FORT BOWYER 

of most of his fellows. His mind did not 
cure him of his ills, but it kept his ills from 
killing him. In this spirit of determination 
lay the secret of both his success in life and 
the length of his miserable days. 

After the battle of Tahopeka his popu- 
larity in the Southwest was assured and 
placed upon a solid foundation ; but so re- 
mote from each other were the different sec- 
tions of our vast country that the hero of the 
Creek War was barely known in the more 
thickly populated portions. Men in the 
North heard of Jackson's victories as mere 
news notices, but at last they began to in- 
quire who he was. But little was known of 
the lawyer-soldier outside of his own district, 
and events and names of the South pene- 
trated far New England with the weakness 
of a faint echo. As one traveled from the 
North to the South the sound grew until at 
last the name and fame of Jackson domi- 
nated all others. In his home neighborhood 
it was almost an insult to the community to 
push inquiries about the famous son of that 
105 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

section ; it argued indifference, or, what was 
worse, inexcusable ignorance. 

But the authorities at Washington had 
kept him in touch, and could not ignore him 
without ignoring the people with whom he 
was a hero ; and when, shortly after the 
Creek campaign, there came a vacancy in 
the list of major-generals of the United 
States army, the position was offered to him, 
and it was at once accepted. 

This new rank increased Jackson's in- 
come at a time when he greatly needed more 
money. His pay was a princely sum for 
those days, averaging him about six thousand 
dollars yearly, and never was cash more 
thoroughly earned. 

But the office permitted of no ease. It 
is true that the war was over so far as the 
Creeks were concerned, but England, not 
discouraged by the defeat of her red allies, 
was becoming more aggressive toward the 
South, and now openly threatened the coast. 
It was evident that Mobile was to be the 
point of attack, and to Mobile hurried the 
106 



FORT BOWYER 

promoted general. The questions of ill- 
health and needed rest were not considered ; 
his duty was plain, and he hastened to do it 
— we will see with what results. 

At this time (1814) Florida was in the 
hands of the Spanish, to whom it belonged. 
According to our treaty with the King of 
Spain, that power was neutral and was sup- 
posed to take no part in the war between 
America and England ; but in defiance of all 
treaties it did take part, if not actively, in 
such a way as to help the English. Florida 
opened her principal port, Pensacola, to the 
English fleet, and there the English forces 
made their headquarters, riding their ships in 
safety on the broad bay and keeping their 
troops in the fort that protected it. It was 
a base for supplies that was very necessary 
to them, as they had none other nearer than 
the West Indies. 

Colonel Nichols, who had command of 

the British troops, made little attempt to 

conceal the fact that he was about to move 

against Mobile, and Jackson, through his 

107 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

spies, well knew of the contemplated attack. 
He protested against Spain's breach of inter- 
national law, and resolved that when the 
time came he would take matters into his 
own hands — just then all his energy was 
directed toward the defense of the threat- 
ened point. 

As a city, town, or even village, Mobile 
amounted to nothing in those days, and its 
capture would have been of little advantage 
to the British ; but Mobile Bay, with its 
great system of rivers, was a desirable pos- 
session, and the town itself, containing about 
one hundred buildings and a few dilapidated 
blockhouses, which could be turned into 
points of defense, would furnish shelter for 
troops and be a convenient base from which 
to operate against the surrounding country. 
If the British could once obtain a foothold 
in the bay the town must fall, and from the 
town it would be difficult to dislodge them. 

Thirty miles from Mobile village was 
Mobile Point, a sandy hook of land that 
protected the bay from the surges racing in 
108 



FORT BOWYER 

from the great Gulf of Mexico. On this 
point the United States Government had 
started to erect a fort which was to command 
the only channel by which ships could enter 
the inland waters, but the defense was in an 
unfinished state ; it had been abandoned for 
some years and was now falling into ruins. 
This work was called Fort Bowyer, but has 
since been renamed Fort Morgan. Save for 
two twenty-four-pound cannon, six twelve- 
pound, and a dozen smaller pieces, all exposed 
to the elements and unmounted, there was lit- 
tle about the fortification that gave it value as 
a defensive post. To be sure, there were can-, 
non-balls, piled up and red with old rust, but 
there was no powder to back them, nor was 
there even a bomb-proof to protect the men. 
But for the hillocks of white sand in its rear 
— hillocks some of them so high that a gun 
placed upon them could have commanded 
the interior of the fort — the place was sur- 
rounded by the deep-blue sea ; the hot sun 
shone from a dazzling sky, and the only green 
near by was that of the coarse, thin grass 
109 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

clinging to the sand-hills and bending like 
wires under the fresh gulf breeze. It was all 
blue and white, silent and desolate. 



no 



CHAPTER XI 

THE BATTLE 

To this point went Jackson in the latter 
part of August, 1814. He saw that here lay 
the key to the whole situation and wondered 
why the British, when they passed on their 
way to Pensacola, had not repaired the fort 
and left a few scores of men to hold it. It 
would have upset all his plans and probably 
rendered others useless. Mobile would have 
been lost. 

But now it was too late ; Jackson had 
his hand on it. He placed in it 160 men, 
as, until his promised reenforcements should 
arrive, he could spare no more. To com- 
mand them he left Major Lawrence, a brave 
and competent officer of the regular army, 
and after supplying the force with some 
ammunition and provisions and promising 
more, he returned to Mobile to hurry the 
111 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

work on the immediate defenses of the town. 
Though his body could be in but one place 
at a time, his mind, spirit, and commands 
were everywhere. He seemed to see things 
beyond the sight of others, and from his 
headquarters viewed the situation with the 
eye of a military genius. 

Meanwhile Major Lawrence went to 
work to make the fort serve something of its 
original purpose, and the men hustled about 
to prepare for the enemy, who might heave 
in sight at any hour. For twelve days they 
worked unmolested and with effect, and 
when on September 12th a lookout came 
running in to say that the British ships were 
coming, though all was not completed, 
enough had been done to enable the little 
garrison to hope they could make it very 
warm for their visitors. 

But the work went on even while the 
British Colonel Nichols landed on the beach 
a mile or so back of the fort, with 130 Brit- 
ish marines and over a hundred Indians ; it 
went on as the British ships anchored off the 
112 



THE BATTLE 

coast and weir out of cannon-shot. These 
latter were four men-of-war : the Hermes, 
with twenty-two guns ; the Sophia, eighteen 
guns ; the Carron, twenty guns ; and the 
Childers, with eighteen guns. The whole 
was under command of one Captain Percy, 
who also commanded the Hermes. 

An easy thing it must have seemed to 
him to capture the small and unfinished fort. 
His great ships lay ready at his command, 
and on the land behind the feeble-looking 
work were nearly twice the number of men 
the fort contained; painted Indians, with the 
war-whoop anxious to leap from their red 
throats, sturdy marines who looked at the 
matter as holiday work. The only thing 
which showed that the way was not open 
was the little square of bunting on which 
were the Stars and Bars — stars which Percy 
could not dim — bars that were to prove too 
strong for him to break, although his men 
were five to Lawrence's one. 

Did the last-named officer shrink at the 
prospect? Not a bit. He called his force 

113 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

together and made the watchword, " Don't 
give up the fort." They agreed, every man 
under oath, not to surrender to even an 
overwhelming force unless they could obtain 
honorable terms and full protection from 
the Indians, and with this heroic spirit ani- 
mating them the men returned to their 
guns, which had never yet been fired. It is 
strange, in the face of the result of this bat- 
tle, that not a man among those detailed to 
work the artillery had ever handled a large 
gun ; they were to learn their lesson while 
fighting, and they learned it well. 

Jackson, thirty miles away, knew noth- 
ing of the state of things obtaining on the 
coast until Lawrence sent him a hurried 
message. In response to this the general 
forwarded eighty more men — the last he 
dared spare — and with a spirited reply to the 
fort's commander left him to defend the 
point without hope of further help. 

It was an anxious time for the little band 
by the sea. Each wave that rolled in on the 
white beach seemed to bear a threat from 
114 



THE BATTLE 

the off-lying fleet ; the soft air whispered 
danger from another quarter. For a time 
no move was made, and the Americans still 
worked and waited. The guns had been 
mounted, the bomb-proofs finished, but there 
were yet many weak points to strengthen. 

Presently Captain Woodbine, of the Brit- 
ish on the land, brought up a howitzer, his 
only one, and planting it on a high sand- 
dune about three-quarters of a mile from the 
fort, fired a shot at the Americans, but the 
ball did no damage. In reply, Lawrence 
turned two guns on the spot and the enemy 
scattered at the first fire ; then again came a 
long wait. 

Down went the hot sun, but the little 
garrison, ever vigilant, slept on its arms, 
each man at his post of duty. The brilliant 
Southern night brought no change, neither 
was there as much as an alarm. The day 
dawned and the scene was unaltered ; there 
lay the ships, four black threats, and there, 
well out of range and for the most part out 
of sight, lay the marines and Indians. As 

115 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

the day wore on, a number of boats, mere 
specks on the blue water, passed between 
the shore and the ships, but nothing seemed 
to come of it ; later in the day a few boats 
approached and began sounding the channel, 
but two or three charges of grape-shot from 
the fort were sent spattering about them, and 
they withdrew in a hurry. Again there came 
a blank in events — a wait which strained the 
nerves of the silent defenders and set their 
commander wondering what would happen 
next. 

Down sank the red sun again, and again 
came a hot, still night. The sentinels, keenly 
alive to every sound, heard nothing but the 
dull thunder of the combers on the beach 
and the hiss of the receding foam. The fol- 
lowing morning was thick with early mists 
and many an eye in the fort tried to pierce 
the fleecy curtain. When, finally, the heat 
and brisk wind dissipated the fog there still 
lay the fleet unmoved, and there, too, was the 
camp of the landed enemy. Were the Brit- 
ish trying to tire the fort's defenders ? For 
116 



THE BATTLE 

a time it seemed so, but in the course of the 
morning there was much moving of boats be- 
tween ships and shore, and at last it became 
clear that something was about to take place. 

And something did take place, surprising 
the inmates of the fort as much as though 
the ships had crawled upon land. The brisk 
wind had fallen to a light breathing from the 
south, and soon after the boats ceased pass- 
ing to and fro ; then every vessel spread its 
canvas and fled to sea, beating its way down 
the gulf. 

Had they gone ? Had they given over 
their first intention without a fight ? Had 
the little, starry flag frightened them away ? 
One might have thought so but for the fact 
that Woodbine and his force remained be- 
hind in a little sand fortification they had 
thrown up. Every eye hung on the rece- 
ding fleet ; smaller and smaller it became, 
lower and lower sank the black hulls until 
the blue line of the horizon was over them. 
Then there was a change. It was about two 
in the afternoon when the anxious watchers 
9 117 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

saw the hulls reappear and grow nearer, and 
at last conviction came. The ships had gone 
out to form ; they were now sailing down 
the wind in line of battle ; they were about 
to attack the fort. 

At the head of the line came the Hermes 
and the larger guns of the fort engaged her 
at long range. She replied with spirit, but 
no damage was done. On she came, proudly 
and bravely, right up the narrow channel 
which ran under the guns of the fort, and 
when she had approached to within less than 
easy musket-shot, she dropped her anchors, 
swung around and let go a whole broadside, 
the crash of which received a prompt an- 
swer in the shape of a shower of round shot 
from the fort. The other vessels followed 
the lead of the Hermes, and though they 
were not quite so near the fort as the flag- 
ship, they were well within range. 

The thunder of cannon now rolled as it 

had never before rolled over Mobile Point, 

nor was it to roll again until the gallant Far- 

ragut passed that way nearly twoscore ye^rs 

118 



THE BATTLE 

after. When the fight was well on Captain 
Woodbine thought his chance had come, and 
again brought up his howitzer, but a few 
shots from the fort silenced him as quickly 
as before ; his Indians did not relish cannon. 
As the men fought and became more famil- 
iar with working the great guns their shots 
became better and better. They were not 
demoralized, for as yet, with all the iron hail 
hurled against them, not a man had been 
killed. Let us quote from Parton again : 

** For an hour the firing continued on 
both sides without a moment's pause, the 
fleet and the fort enveloped in huge volumes 
of smoke lighted up by the incessant flash of 
the guns. At half past five the halliards of 
the Hermes's flag was severed by a shot and 
the flag fell into the fire and smoke below. 
Major Lawrence, thinking it possible that 
the ship might have surrendered, ceased his 
fire. A silence of five minutes succeeded, at 
the expiration of which a new flag fluttered 
up the masthead of the commodore's ship, 
and the Sophia, that lay next her, renewed 
119 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

the strife by firing a whole broadside at once. 
In the interval every gun in the fort had 
been loaded, and the broadside was returned 
with a salvo that shook the earth. A most 
furious firing succeeded and continued for 
some time longer without any important 
mishap occurring on either side." 

But the shot that cut the flag-line on the 
Hermes was not the only lucky one that 
went hurtling across the water from the fort. 
A better one was to come. In the hottest 
part of the action a ball cut the stern cable 
of the Hermes, and the tide, catching her, 
swung her around bow on to the fort in such 
a position that not a single gun could bear. 
Lawrence saw his chance and directed his 
full fire at the helpless vessel. For nearly 
half an hour she lay thus exposed to a furi- 
ous raking cannonade. Her deck was soon 
swept clear of every man and she could 
neither be worked nor fought. In this con- 
dition, as inert as a log of wood, she slowly 
drifted along until she grounded in shallow 
water, and her commander, seeing her help- 
120 




A new flag was planted on the ramparts. 



THE BATTLE 

less position and not wishing to surrender 
her, set her afire after transferring his 
wounded to the Sophia. 

During all this time the other ships were 
sending their iron rain at the fort. Finally 
a chance shot cut down the flagstaff, and as 
it fell. Woodbine, with his Indians, came 
charging up, thinking that Lawrence had 
surrendered. But their eyes were at once 
opened to the mistake, for they were re- 
ceived by a galling burst of grape-shot that 
sent the Indians howling away to the protec- 
tion of the sand-dunes, and the rest beat a 
quick retreat. In a minute more a new flag 
was nailed to a sponging-rod and planted on 
the ramparts. The Stars and Bars again 
floated, nor had they been hauled down. 

As soon as the crew of the Hermes had 
gained the deck of the Sophia, that vessel, 
which had been severely handled and conse- 
quently crippled, made haste to escape the 
fate of the flag-ship ; but she had a hard 
time of it, though finally she got out of 
range. The remaining two of the fleet hav- 

121 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

ing been at a greater distance from the spite- 
ful little fort, were not seriously damaged, 
but seeing the action of the Sophia, they 
recognized the futility of trying to reduce 
their enemy, and therefore hoisted their sails 
and put to sea in hot haste. 

Though the battle was won, and as a bat- 
tle was over, the Americans kept up their 
fire on the Hermes until the flames Percy 
had kindled broke out and heralded the 
ship's speedy destruction. All that evening 
she burned, a magnificent sight, lighting up 
the sea for miles around ; near midnight the 
fire reached her well-stored magazine and she 
blew up with a deafening detonation. It 
was a grand finale, and the black darkness 
that now fell on land and water bore no 
more terrors for the little garrison. Mobile 
Bay and Mobile town had been saved. 

At dawn the next day the vicinity was 
clear of enemies. Nichols and Woodbine, 
with their marines and Indians, had gone, 
and in the offing were seen the three ships 
that bore them away. They came back no 

122 



THE BATTLE 

more. Two of the marines stayed behind, 
however — deserters from the British service 
— and they told how severely their former 
friends had been handled. Their report was 
probably exaggerated, but the British af- 
terward acknowledged a loss of thirty-two 
killed and forty wounded ; the Americans 
lost four men by death, and six through 
wounds caused by the bursting of a car- 
tridge. The fort was badly battered, how- 
ever, though it had not been greatly weak- 
ened. Two of the biggest guns had been 
cracked in firing ; two more had been 
knocked out of service, while one had burst 
and the muzzle of another had been broken 
off by a heavy ball from the ships. The 
exultant men counted some three hundred 
shot-holes in the fort's walls, and the land 
around looked as if it had been plowed. 
On the other hand, of all the guns the fort 
contained only twelve pieces had been in 
active use against the fleet, yet the record 
showed that they had thrown seven hundred 
balls. 

123 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

What a weight of iron must have passed 
between ships and fort ! what a wonder that 
such a small loss of life resulted ! One of 
our modern guns could do more service or 
damage in a dozen well-placed shots than 
did all the armament on that memorable day 
off Mobile Point. 



124 



CHAPTER XII 

PENSACOLA 

Did Jackson now draw a long sigh of 
relief and rest ? Not he. He was in a frenzy 
of anxiety. It was true that the enemy had 
gone — but where had he gone? New Or- 
leans lay wide open to almost any force, and 
yet Jackson felt powerless. The promised 
reenforcements had not arrived, and to move 
his small force from Fort Bowyer was to risk 
losing the fruits of the late fight. For six 
long weeks Jackson waited, and hoped, and 
swore at the tardiness of officials, but in the 
interval he heard that Nichols had returned 
to Pensacola, and was preparing for active 
service elsewhere. What point could he be 
aiming at but the pride of the Southwest — 
the Crescent City — New Orleans ? 

At the end of six weeks new men began 
to come in, his friend Coffee at the head 
125 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

of 2,800 fresh troops, with the rest, and by 
November ist Jackson found himself at 
the head of 4,000 men and a few friendly 
Indians. 

During his long wait his wrath against 
Pensacola and the Spanish governor there 
had waxed hotter and hotter, and when he 
found himself backed by a respectable army 
he knew well enough what his next move 
would be. He had communicated his plans 
to the Secretary of War in Washington, and 
in the rather blind answer from that official 
he found, or thought he found, permission to 
go ahead. In this correspondence about 
Pensacola there were sowed the seeds of no 
end of trouble, which, in after-years, bore 
bitter fruit for many men, but that has 
nothing to do with this story. 

Jackson was about to move. As his men 
took little or no baggage and but eight days' 
rations, it was evident that the irascible gen- 
eral looked for a short campaign, and a short 
one it was. The weather there was not the 
bleak November weather of the North, but 
126 



PENSACOLA 

was warm and pleasant, and as the troops 
were in high spirits and in full sympathy with 
their errand, that of routing the British from 
Pensacola, they marched rapidly on, and by 
the sixth of the month the army had arrived 
within a mile and a half of the town. They 
wasted no time here, though they halted by 
the roadside long enough for one of the offi- 
cers. Major Pierce, to take a message from 
Jackson demanding the surrender of all the 
fortifications and munitions of war. The gen- 
eral promised to hold them in trust, give 
a receipt for them, and expressly stated that 
nothing was to be destroyed ; he was not 
making war on Spain, but upon the English 
who were under Spanish protection. This 
message was sent to the governor with the 
assurance that the inhabitants of the town, 
their religion, and the town itself would re- 
main unmolested if his demands were com- 
plied with, but the English should go ; he 
had come to drive them out, and drive them 
out he would. 

At this high-handed demand the fright- 
127 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

ened governor knew not how to act. With 
the British on one side and a threatening force 
on the other he was in a pitiable state ; but 
the fear of the British prevailed, and he hes- 
itatingly refused to comply with Jackson's 
demand. 

When the envoy returned to the general 
and communicated the answer it was night. 
The old veteran was not excited as he lis- 
tened to the report ; he neither raved nor 
swore, but his thin lips came together in a 
fine line, and rising to his feet he simply 
said : 

*' Turn out the troops ! " 

It was before daylight on November 
7th that the soldiers formed and marched 
upon the road by the side of which they 
had bivouacked. The country about was 
open and level, and the growing light ex- 
posed them to the enemy as they approached. 
For a mile or more they marched openly, 
and as they came within range they were 
fired upon by a battery of two guns, while a 
shower of musket-balls came from behind 
128 



PENSACOLA 

the shelter of houses and garden-walls. But 
on went the troops with a firmness that com- 
manded the admiration of Jackson himself. 
In a letter to Governor Blout he said of 
them : 

** My pride was never more heightened 
than in viewing the uniform firmness of my 
troops, and with what undaunted courage 
they advanced, with a strong fort ready to 
assail them on the right, seven armed vessels 
on the left, strong blockhouses and batteries 
of cannon in their front ; but they still ad- 
vanced with unbroken firmness and entered 
the town." 

The battery that had opened fire was soon 
carried, and the musketry from the gardens 
ceased as it was returned with effect. On 
went the soldiers and down went a second 
battery before it had time to load but twice. 
It was evident that the blood of ** Old Hick- 
ory " was up, and that the town would suffer 
for its reception of him, but at this point the 
totally demoralized governor came running 
from his house wildly waving a white hand- 
129 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

kerchief as a flag of truce. He now prom- 
ised that if the town was spared he would 
surrender it and all its forts and defenses, 
and with this understanding Jackson ordered 
a cessation of hostilities. But whether by 
what the general called " Spanish treachery " 
or through a misunderstanding of orders, all 
the forts were not surrendered at once. One 
after another hauled down their flags ; all but 
the most important one of the whole — Fort 
Barrancas — in which were a large number of 
English, and which, if in possession of the 
Americans, would have held the English 
ships as in a trap. It was six miles from 
the town, and commanded the bay with its 
guns. 

Jackson wished this work, and it was 
promised him, but the delay of the governor 
in giving his orders — a delay perhaps una- 
voidable, perhaps intentional — enabled the 
English to escape. That night, when the 
general had fully made up his mind to storm 
the fortification the next morning, there were 
heard three explosions, and the report soon 
130 



PENSACOLA 

came that Fort Barrancas had been blown to 
ruins by the English, who had retreated to 
their ships and sailed away for an unknown 
destination. 

Here was victory for Jackson, but his 
satisfaction was tinctured with great bitter- 
ness. He had routed out the British and 
ruined their rendezvous ; but where had they 
gone ? Was Mobile to be threatened again, 
and the troops away ? was the battered fort, 
with its reduced garrison, to fight again and 
against a larger fleet than before? These 
questions nearly crazed the general. He 
hurriedly sent word to Lawrence, who still 
commanded the fort, to be on his guard, and 
then he prepared to quit Pensacola ; the 
place was useless to him without Fort Bar- 
rancas. 

There was no delay permitted. By the 
next morning the Americans in full force 
were on their hurried way back to Mobile; 
there had not been a single man killed 
during the fight and there were less than 
twenty wounded. 

131 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

And at Mobile they found peace pro- 
found to stagnation. Nothing had hap- 
pened nor had Lawrence seen a sign of the 
threatening fleet. Later came the informa- 
tion that the English had gone to Appalachi- 
cola and were fortifying the place as though 
in fear of attack. And well might they 
have been afraid, now knowing the methods 
of the American general. The American 
general, however, did not think them worth 
his personal attention, so sent one of his 
officers, a Major Blue, who with some troops 
and a tribe of friendly Indians made short 
work of them. The hostile Indians hired by 
the English were completely defeated and 
scattered, and the English themselves were 
forced to get to sea again. There seemed to 
be no spot on Spanish or American soil on 
which Nichols could rest his weary feet. 

But Jackson well knew that the end was 
not yet. There was one point on which he 
always kept his eye, fearing for it. Mobile 
was not the most important town on the 
coast; there was another on which he knew 



PENSACOLA 

the English wish was fastened, and believing 
they were preparing to strike New Orleans, 
he left General Winchester in charge of 
Mobile, and bidding General Coffee to fol- 
low him at a rate that would not tire the 
troops, he himself departed for the Crescent 
City. It was a very rough journey for a 
sick man. One hundred and seventy miles 
over roads rarely better and sometimes worse 
than a wood path or a half-drained ditch was 
an undertaking which would have appalled 
most men, but Jackson made the trip, and 
save for his staff of officers he was alone. 

He averaged seventeen miles a day and 
arrived at New Orleans on the first day of 
December, 1814. Negotiations to end the 
war between England and America were 
then pending — were about completed — but 
Jackson did not know it. 



10 



»33 



CHAPTER Xin 

THE BRITISH LAND 

The prematurely aged man was in a state 
bordering on collapse when he entered the 
city. He was thoroughly exhausted and 
had to be helped from his horse, but instead 
of taking to his bed for needed rest he 
plunged at once into the business that had 
brought him there. 

New Orleans lay wide open to the 
enemy, and had they come at this time 
scarcely a show of opposition would have 
met them. It is true that there were some 
half-filled regiments, beautifully drilled but 
poorly equipped; it is true that the best 
blood of the city was within their ranks and 
that they lacked nothing in valor and ability ; 
but up to General Jackson's arrival there 
had been no head to lead them, or rather, 
there had been a dozen heads pulling in 

134 



THE BRITISH LAND 

different directions. Governor Claiborne, 
alive to the condition of matters and full of 
fear for the future, had convened an extra 
session of the Legislature, hoping that some 
way to meet the growing danger would be 
revealed, but the Legislature contented itself 
with appointing a few weak committees with 
illy defined powers, and then the members 
fell to quarreling among themselves. It was 
evident that but few looked upon the danger 
as real, and yet, while the people were 
dreaming of security but taking no means 
to obtain it, a British fleet of fifty ships 
carrying a thousand guns, twenty thousand 
soldiers, and ten thousand sailors had left 
Negril Bay, on the shore of the island of 
Jamaica, West Indies, and the entire force was 
bearing down upon the undefended city. 

But, as in the case of Mobile Bay, Jack- 
son arrived first, and, waving the magic 
wand of his intense personality, threw a new 
atmosphere over the community. All was 
changed ; order came out of confusion, and 
the many divergent interests, centered in the 

135 



THE LAND KERO OF 1812 

mighty intellect of this one sick man, moved 
smoothly toward a single end. It was he, and 
he alone, who expressed entire confidence in 
his ability to defend New Orleans, and that, 
too, at a time when he had less than a 
thousand muskets to back him. This con- 
fidence inspired confidence, and the think- 
ing men of the town who had previously 
deplored the laxity of the authorities and 
quailed at the prospects held for the future, 
now smiled, shook hands with each other on 
the streets, and blessed Jackson as the man 
of destiny. 

The general, often tottering from weak- 
ness, rode here, there, and everywhere deliver- 
ing his orders instead of opinions. He first 
placed the city under martial law, then he set 
certain men to doing certain things, and they 
were done. Every wire that moved the mass 
ended in his hands. After inspecting the 
country about the town he determined the 
weak points and the strong points and set 
about strengthening the former — the latter, 
he saw, might care for themselves. 
136 



THE BRITISH LAND 

The city of New Orleans is but a few 
feet above the level of the sea and is itself 
built on quaking soil. All about, save on 
the river-side, are marshes and lagoons in- 
terspersed, along the river's bank, with great 
sugar-cane fields and fruit orchards where the 
apple and golden orange ripen side by side. 
The front door of the city opens upon the 
Mississippi River, here a mighty stream 
nearly a mile wide, hundreds of feet deep, 
and moving with majestic force at a rate of 
more than four miles an hour. 

This powerful current was a protection 
to the city from the river-side ; none of the 
unwieldy ships of war of that day could 
stem such a tide with an average wind, and 
should a favorable wind blow and waft them 
up the river they would be at the mercy of 
the stream when it became calm. 

But as if the feat of sailing up the river 
was possible, it was further protected by a 
fort — Fort St. Philip, about half-way be- 
tween the city and the gulf, and on the 
broad bosom of the flood lay two vessels 

137 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

of war — the ship Louisiana and the little 
schooner Carolina, both unmanned, but each 
was to play an important part in the fight 
that was to come. 

Jackson saw that the mighty strength of 
the giant stream was sufficient protection on 
one side, but on the other, giving easy ac- 
cess to the city's back door, lay Lakes Pon- 
chartrain and Borgne, connected by a narrow 
strait and accessible from the sea by light- 
draft vessels. Should the enemy obtain 
possession of these sheets of water they 
could come close to their prey, and thus it 
became necessary to put up a gate to stop 
them. This gate was a small fort on the 
strait connecting the lakes, and to further 
strengthen it a fleet of six sailing vessels with 
twenty-three guns and nearly two hundred 
men under command of Lieutenant Thomas 
Jones was stationed on Lake Borgne. Lieu- 
tenant Jones was to at once notify Jackson 
of the approach of the enemy in that direc- 
tion, and then to fight to the last extremity. 

But of course it was not to be expected 

138 



THE BRITISH LAND 

that six little gunboats and a few score of 
men could withstand the powerful force com- 
ing against them. The great ships of the 
British counted for nothing but as so many 
bases of supply and a means of carrying an 
army, but there were plenty of small boats 
and plenty of men to fill them, and against 
these Jackson had his army. 

At least he counted on having one. Gen- 
eral Coffee was on his way ; he was bring- 
ing about four thousand men, the army of 
Pensacola, but now nearly a tenth of them 
were sick. In Tennessee there was being 
raised a volunteer force under General Car- 
roll, but not one in ten had a firearm of any 
kind, though they were supplied later. From 
Kentucky two thousand men were coming a 
roundabout way of fifteen hundred miles — 
men only, unprovided with any of the neces- 
sities for making war, but filled with the 
spirit that makes heroes. So meager were 
their supplies that it is recorded of these 
Kentuckians that they had but one cooking 
kettle to each eighty mcfiy and yet they 

139 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 ' 

marched with their heads high, and in the 
end fought like devils. In all, Jackson ex- 
pected to have — and finally did have — be- 
tween six and seven thousand men, though 
many went to supply the garrison of Fort 
St. Philip and the fort on the strait, and as 
many more went to the lake fleet and the 
war-ships Louisiana and Carolina. This 
was the situation on December 14th, the 
only available force being but two thousand 
armed men. 

The British were three weeks in coming, 
sailing pleasantly over a lovely sea (for they 
were in the tropics), joking about the easy 
victory they were to have, and vastly pleased 
at the coming humility of the Yankees. And 
why not ? They were the veterans of the 
Peninsular War, flushed with victory after 
victory, and many of them had been trained 
under the eye of the *' Iron Duke " Welling- 
ton. They thought the Yankees were to be 
as nothing against their mettle. 

On the 2 2d of December they anchored 
off Lake Borgne. From the British ships 
140 



THE BRITISH LAND 

and over the low and level marshes could be 
seen the little fleet that was to oppose their 
farther approach, and the British commander 
at once determined to get rid of it, as no 
forward movement could be made until the 
gunboats were either captured or destroyed. 
Against Jones and his six little vessels he sent 
fifty large open boats filled with marines. 
As a dead calm prevailed at the time the 
American commander could not retreat to 
the protection of the guns of the fort, and 
after a brave but hopeless fight he was 
obliged to surrender. The way was now 
open for the enemy. New Orleans was 
eighty miles away, the road to it unob- 
structed save by the fort, which could be 
flanked if the British determined to attack 
by the back door. And the alarm had not 
been given. 

Nor did the alarm reach the city save by 
the merest chance. The English captured 
every guard-boat and guard they came across, 
and only by the escape of one of their prison- 
ers, a young major by the name of Gabriel 
141 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

Valler^, who was caught upon his father's 
plantation while doing picket duty, was a 
complete surprise averted. Judge Walker 
thus describes the scene that ensued on 
Major Valler^'s arrival with the news, for 
until that moment the general had no sus- 
picion that the British ships were off the 
coast, that Jones had been defeated, and that 
the enemy, who had at last found the road 
they had been looking for, that along the 
river-bank, had advanced quickly and were 
at that hour bivouacked within eight miles of 
New Orleans. 

" During all the exciting events of this 
campaign Jackson had hardly the strength to 
stand erect without support; his body was 
sustained alone by the spirit within. Ordi- 
nary men would have shrunk into feeble im- 
beciles or useless invalids under such a pres- 
sure. The disease contracted in the swamps 
of Alabama still clung to him. Reduced to a 
mere skeleton, unable to digest his food, and 
unrefreshed by sleep, his life seemed to be 
preserved by some miraculous agency. There 
142 



THE BRITISH LAND 

in the parlor of his headquarters in Royal 
Street, surrounded by his faithful and efficient 
aides, he worked day and night, organizing 
his forces, despatching orders, receiving re- 
ports, and making all the necessary arrange- 
ments for the defense of the city. 

** Jackson was thus engaged at half past 
one o'clock on the twenty-third day of De- 
cember, 1814, when his attention was drawn 
from certain documents he was carefully read- 
ing by the sound of horses galloping down 
the streets with more rapidity than comported 
with the order of a city under martial law. 
The sounds ceased at the door of his head- 
quarters, and the sentinel on duty announced 
the arrival of three gentlemen who desired to 
see the general immediately, having impor- 
tant intelligence to communicate. 

" ' Show them in,' ordered the general. 

" The visitors proved to be Mr. Dussau 
de la Croix, Major Gabriel Vallere, and 
Colonel de la Ronde. They were stained 
with mud, and nearly breathless with the 
rapidity of their ride. 

H3 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

** ' What news do you bring, gentlemen ? ' 
eagerly asked the general. 

" * Important ! Highly important ! ' re- 
sponded Mr. de la Croix. *The British 
have arrived at Vallere's plantation, nine 
miles below the city, and are there encamped. 
Here is Major Vallere, who was captured by 
them, has escaped, and will now relate his 
story.' 

" The major accordingly detailed in a 
perspicuous manner all the occurrences we 
have related, employing his mother-tongue, 
jthe French language, which De la Croix 
translated to the general. At the close of 
Major Vallere's narrative the general ex- 
claimed : 

** * By the Eternal ! They shall not sleep 
upon our soil ! ' " 

" Then courteously inviting his visitors to 
refresh themselves, and sipping a glass of 
wine in compliment to them, he turned to 
his secretary and aides and remarked : 

** * Gentlemen, the British are below ; we 
must fight them to-night ! "* 
144 



THE BRITISH LAND 

From his confidence, serenity, and the 
tone of his voice one might have thought 
that a long-looked-for moment had at length 
arrived and that the matter had fallen ex- 
actly in line with his hopes, expectations, and 
preparations. On the contrary, Jackson was 
not at all prepared to see the enemy any- 
where, much less so near the city. The 
knowledge had come to him with the sud- 
denness of a blow. 

His force had greatly increased, however, 
which was fortunate, but his willingness or 
anxiety to fight was due more to his knowl- 
edge of human nature than to a wish to 
avenge the insult to the soil. A quick and 
unexpected attack would do much to demor- 
alize the enemy and make them cautious, 
while a tardy meeting would give his own 
green troops a chance to think, and perhaps 
fear and tremble, at the same time allowing 
the British an opportunity to choose their 
ground and work with deliberation. 

It is hardly to be thought that with his 
untrained force and in the open field Jack- 

H5 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

son hoped to defeat the veterans of England, 
but he gave his orders as though he expected 
to drive the foe back into the gulf from 
which he came. To the head of each com- 
mand went an order to break camp and go to 
the front ; there they were to await the gen- 
eral's arrival. Among the rest, Commodore 
Patterson was sent for and requested to have 
his two vessels (which had recently been 
manned with green hands) ready to weigh 
anchor and go down the river at short no- 
tice. 

It looked as though the thing had been 
mapped out and prearranged days before, 
but it had not. The orders, full of detail 
which is not here given, were not due to the 
meditation of days or even hours ; the plan 
was the work of minutes. 



146 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE NIGHT ATTACK 

After a space of incredible mental ac- 
tivity, the general sat down to his dinner as 
cool as a cucumber. The dinner was of 
boiled rice and nothing else, as that was all 
the food his stomach could tolerate. A very 
little of this sufficed him, and when he had 
finished he went to his office and lay on a 
lounge for a short nap. At three o'clock he 
was in the saddle going to the front. He 
was ahead of his troops, and in the lower 
part of the city he halted to see them come 
up and pass on their way. As each com- 
mand arrived it was ordered to press on to 
the Rodriguez Canal, an old mill-race six 
miles below the town, which stretched across 
the firm ground between the river and the 
swamp-land to the east. At four o'clock, 
when he had seen the little schooner Caro- 

H7 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

lina drop down the river in pursuance of 
his orders, he put spurs to his horse and 
disappeared in the direction his troops had 
taken. 

From this time on to the next morning 
no one living can say exactly what happened, 
and those historians (now long dead) who 
attempted to describe the fight differ so 
widely in detail, and even generalities, that the 
truth is impossible to determine. This much, 
however, is known : 

First, that Jackson, true to his instincts 
as an Indian fighter, determined to corner his 
enemy. They lay near the great levee, or 
high bank of the river, their bivouac fires 
glinting across the level plain like so many 
stars. Recollect that this was during the 
short days of December. The crops, which 
had erstwhile decked the land and obstructed 
extended vision, were now harvested. The 
sugar-cane fields were all stubble and many 
of the trees were barren of leaf. Second, 
the view showed the British position, and the 
general saw that if he could get a force to 
148 



THE NIGHT ATTACK 

hold the enemy from direct retreat he might 
attack in front and drive the invaders into the 
mighty stream near which they lay. Third, 
that accordingly he sent for General Cof- 
fee and ordered him to take his riflemen, 
flank the enemy, and be prepared to attack 
when signaled. Fourth, that he ordered the 
Carolina to drop down the stream, anchor 
abreast of the British camp, and open fire with 
her single great gun and all her smaller ones. 
This was to be the signal for the general at- 
tack. Until the great metal throat bellowed 
its note of war not a sound was to come 
from the American army. Just then its 
presence was unsuspected. Jackson had 
acted with wisdom, despatch, and secrecy. 

The two forces were then fairly matched 
in numbers. The British in front, under the 
command of General Keane, was but the van- 
guard of the army, which was too far away to 
readily support it; while with him Jackson 
had but few more than two thousand men, 
most of them unused to battle. On the Car- 
olina and Louisiana not one man in five knew 



II 



149 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

anything about a ship and had to learn their 
duties in doing them. 

Though silence was commanded in the 
American army, the command was hardly 
necessary. The troops were too full of an 
appreciation of their position to be very hila- 
rious. Those who had food ate it if they 
were hungry, but there was little hunger dis- 
played. The time was full of tension. Men 
spoke in whispers as they lay on the ground 
and watched the misty moon rise above the 
swamp. Many hoped it would be too dark 
to fight — but alas for their hopes ! 

The moon failed early, the clouds cover- 
ing it and making the night murky enough, 
and to increase the gloom, there blew in the 
night fog from the broad river. It became 
impossible to see five feet ahead, and even 
then objects were but dimly outlined. 

But the fight went on, if not the way 
planned, yet with great fierceness, and that 
shade which covered the field shuts out the 
truth of much of the night's doings. 

The Carolina played her part and played 
150 



THE NIGHT ATTACK 

it well. She trained her guns on the spot 
where the British camp was supposed to be, 
and without a sign of a mark let slip a storm 
of iron. It is said that her first broadside, 
delivered at seven o'clock, laid low a hundred 
British, but in the face of their returns this 
could hardly be true. At all events, she 
opened the ball — and opened it too soon for 
Coffee, who was stumbling slowly along his 
marshy way, an hour behind the time for his 
proper arrival at his destination. 

Little beyond the foregoing facts is sure. 
At the signal, or soon after, Jackson ordered 
forward the main army, and forward it went, 
blindly, but full of faith that to go forward 
was the proper thing to do, since Andrew 
Jackson commanded. Then the silence sud- 
denly turned to shrieking. In short order 
American and British met and became mixed 
in the dark, and the battle turned into a 
rough-and-tumble fight. Both friend and 
foe speaking the same language made mat- 
ters worse. Friend shot at friend, or fought 
side by side with a foe until some chance 

151 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

showed the two were enemies, and then they 
flew at each other. Prisoners were taken 
and retaken in a moment. One man would 
go up to another, thinking him to be one of 
his own, find himself a prisoner, at once 
knock down his captor with a blow of his 
fist, and flee into the darkness, only to have 
the experience reversed. It was a general 
mix-up of blood and hatred, the blind fight- 
ing the blind, and the fury of the contest 
hastened its end. Tired, torn, and breathless, 
the two bodies finally separated, and as the 
British reenforcements began to come in 
and tip the well-balanced beam, Jackson drew 
off his forces. The enemy had learned their 
lesson ; they did not press after him. 

By ten o'clock, save for a few shots deliv- 
ered at intervals, the fight had ceased. Men 
felt their ways over the dark, water-sodden 
plain, hunting for the wounded. These were 
gathered up, and together with the British 
prisoners, sent back to the city. The attack, 
while a failure from one point of view, was 
a great success from another ; it made the 
152 



THE NIGHT ATTACK 

enemy halt on the plain and left him entirely 
without the means of protection, and true to 
Jackson's threat the previous noon, they did 
little sleeping on American soil. 

The military problem that had suddenly 
arisen was one easy of answer. The British 
must make the next move ; they must either 
attack or retreat the way they had come ; 
there was no alternative, and Jackson roused 
himself to meet the issue, as not for a 
moment did he dream that the English would 
respect him or his army sufficiently to re- 
treat without striking an aggressive blow. 

By one o'clock that night the fog had 
lifted somewhat. The air suddenly turned 
very cold and the stiffened bodies of the dead 
were touched with hoar-frost. By this time 
the Americans had formed entirely across 
the land, from swamp to river, and thousands 
of camp-fires winked back the sparkle given 
by the camp-fires of the now puzzled British. 
From the innumerable lights that dotted the 
black plain it appeared that the American 
army was much greater than in reality, and 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

behind the encompassing fires, Jackson, with 
his generals, held a council of war. 

It was not an extended meeting. Soon 
it was resolved to fall back to behind the 
Rodriguez Canal at break of day, fortify the 
position in the best way possible, and there 
await the enemy. To strengthen the defense 
the Carolina and the Louisiana were to be 
anchored in the river in siich a way as to 
rake with their cannons the highroad along 
the bank. 

The morning found the Americans at 
their destined point. Hours before word 
had been sent to New Orleans, and by the 
time the little army had retreated from the 
battle-field every species of cart, barrow, 
shovel, pick, or any of the means for digging 
or transporting earth that the city could 
furnish, was at hand waiting for them. Par- 
ton says that then came "such a digging, 
shoveling, and heaping up of earth as the 
delta of the Mississippi, or any other delta, 
has never seen since Adam delved." 

In truth it was a busy time. Each com- 

154 



THE NIGHT ATTACK 

pany was given its line to fortify, and each 
company did its best to outdo all the rest. 
Men who had never worked with aught but 
their heads now worked with their hands and 
laughed at the blood and blisters that en- 
sued. Dandies dug instead of dressing ; 
lovers forgot their ladies, and swung a pick 
with a lustiness not born of the passion 
found in parlors. All were to their knees in 
mud and water, yet never was there an army 
more cheerful or more willing or more wide 
awake to future probabilities. 

The embankment rose steadily, though 
not with magical rapidity, and there was a 
reason for this slowness. The delta of the 
Mississippi, in common with all deltas, is 
made up of the deposited silt and soft, allu- 
vial soil which the river had brought down 
and deposited ages before. Were it not for 
the great levees which confine the " Father 
of Waters " this almost perfectly level plain 
would be covered at every rise of the stream, 
but even thus reclaimed for agriculture, it 
is only a skin of earth so unstable that it 

^55 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

quakes under a heavy tread. Three feet 
below the surface is water and loose mud, 
and to make an embankment sufficiently 
high to form a strong defense the land for a 
long distance about was fairly peeled of its 
soil. This took time, and it was fortunate 
for Jackson that the enemy was too fright- 
ened or too busy to advance. Had they 
even then pushed on with vigor, without 
doubt the city would have fallen into their 
hands. 

But not a movement was made against 
the ununiformed horde, which with pick and 
shovel skinned the face of Mother Earth and 
hauled the rich soil to heighten the embank- 
ment — the porous wall which was to shut 
out the invaders. On December 24th — 
the day before Christmas — the wall was 
raised in some places to a height of five 
feet and was a mile long. The erst-while 
shallow, dry, and grass -grown ditch had 
been deepened so that two or three feet 
of water stood in it. The earth had been 
thrown on the side toward the city and held 

156 



THE NIGHT ATTACK 

in place with stakes. One end of this ram- 
part terminated on the river, the other in a 
swampy wood which made a flank move- 
ment by the enemy impossible, then two 
field-pieces were planted on it in such a man- 
ner as to command the highroad. Opposite 
the river end of the entrenchment, and 
across the stream, another earthwork was 
built later ; this so that the British could 
not cross, plant a battery, and enfilade the 
American breastworks at long range. 

In old histories we are told of how Jack- 
son fought from behind cotton-bales, but 
this is only true in part. So scarce was 
earth, or any material which would stop a 
cannon-ball, that many cotton-bales were in 
the beginning set on the line of the breast- 
works, but before the final and grand attack 
by Pakenham they were so knocked about 
by heavy balls as to be a menace instead of 
a protection ; moreover, they readily caught 
fire and sent forth a thick and offensive 
smoke that made the aiming of a gun a mat- 
ter of guesswork. Jackson at once dis- 

157 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

carded cotton-bales, and the real battle of 
New Orleans was fought without them. 
The British were also in a quandary for 
breastwork material. Being short of earth 
and having no cotton-bales at hand, they 
seized upon hundreds of hogsheads of sugar 
belonging to neighboring plantations and 
placed them before their lines ; but the 
American cannon-balls had little respect for 
them. Sugar has not the dead weight of 
sand, and the round shot from Jackson's 
lines tore through the mass as through paper 
and went their hurtling and death-dealing 
ways far to the British rear. Sugar-barrels 
were discarded, and in the end the walls of 
both sides were built of earth and flesh and 
blood. 



158 



CHAPTER XV 

THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

But the wily American general did not 
confine himself to defensive operations, al- 
though he dared not sacrifice his men by 
exposure in the open field. He seized upon 
the Mississippi itself, and made it do part of 
his work. First, he cut the levee above the 
British, and the road and plains between the 
two armies were soon three feet under water ; 
then he sent an engineer below the enemy 
and cut the levee again. The water poured 
in and the British found themselves on an 
island. Had the river been at high water 
the result of this move must have been to 
drown out the enemy, but, as it happened, 
the flood ran lower and lower, and finally 
the roads came in sight, but the country was 
now a sea of mud. 

During all of this time the British were 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

being reenforced from their ships eighty 
miles away. When they became strong 
enough they were going to attack, mud or no 
mud, but before they were sufficiently organ- 
ized to advance they were in a sorry plight. 
Not only were they confined to a small strip 
of comparatively dry land, but the devil of 
gunpowder was at work against them. The 
two little ships, which had anchored within 
easy range, now began to pour in a storm 
of cannon-balls which swept the plain and 
drove every man to cover. Companies could 
not form, large movements were out of the 
question, and even the routine of daily mili- 
tary life could not be performed in safety. 
Men crouched in wet ditches with their 
heads held low, or lay hidden in outhouses 
and behind slight obstructions. Death hov- 
ered everywhere. The cold and reeking 
ground threatened death, and above it the 
air was full of flying missiles. This state of 
things was most exasperating to the enemy, 
as they could neither attack their foe on the 
river nor defend themselves from the blast 
160 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

that swept over the land. Many of the Brit- 
ish officers had boasted that they would take 
their Christmas dinners in New Orleans, Ad- 
miral Cochrane among the rest, and when 
this had been reported to Jackson he re- 
marked with a dry humor that it might be 
so, but in that event he would preside at the 
meal. But they did not take their Christ- 
mas dinner in the city, and it had become a 
matter of doubt as to their getting dinner 
at all, as the flying balls from the ships 
made cooking well-nigh impossible. The 
invaders, instead of besieging, were in real- 
ity besieged. This state of things could not 
last. 

And yet, while the gust of fire and water 
was being sent by the Americans against 
their enemies, at Ghent, three thousand miles 
away, peace between the two belligerent na- 
tions had already been signed. But neither 
of the armies knew it. A single stroke of 
;the pen had called a halt to brotherly hatred, 
but about New Orleans brotherly hatred 
• waxed hotter and hotter. British pride had 

161 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

stiffened to the breaking-point ; American 
energy had in no wise weakened. 

Christmas was a blue day for the in- 
vaders, but its somberness was somewhat 
lightened by the arrival in camp of the su- 
preme commander of the army, General, or, 
rather, Major-General, Sir Edward Paken- 
ham. This officer was worshiped by his 
men. He had served on the Spanish Penin- 
sula with prominent success and had decided 
talents for matters military. Perhaps addi- 
tional glamor hovered over him from the 
fact that he was both the friend and brother- 
in-law of the great Wellington. He had not 
directed the latter moves of the British army 
on its advance to New Orleans, and certain 
it is that had he done so he would not have 
fallen into the mistake made by General 
Keane ; he would not have allowed himself 
to be cooped up on a few acres of unstable 
land. He set about altering matters at once. 
He saw that it would be impossible to even 
form his troops until the offending gunboats 
on the river were out of the way, and at 
162 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

once decided to blow the Carolina from the 
face of the earth. 

That little vessel was anchored near the 
western bank opposite the camp, but owing 
to the lack of wind and the strength of the 
current, she was practically a fixture — a mere 
floating battery. She could not escape save 
by dropping down the stream, and this would 
have put an end to her usefulness as effectu- 
ally as though sunk. Two miles above her 
lay the much more formidable Louisiana, 
but, strange to relate, Pakenham devoted his 
first and greatest energy against the former 
vessel, which had but one gun of any power, 
instead of sinking the Louisiana and then 
knocking the Carolina to pieces at his leisure. 

To obtain his desired end he sent back to 
the ships for heavy guns — heavy guns which 
had to be rafted eighty miles. It took four 
days to get them, and then they were mount- 
ed on the levee on the night of the 26th — 
twelve of them : nine field-pieces, two how- 
itzers, and a mortar, together with a furnace 
for heating balls. 

163 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

On the morning of the 2 7th the new bat- 
tery opened its attack with a white-hot shot 
which lodged in the timbers of the Carolina 
and set her afire. The little vessel replied 
with its single heavy gun, but the weight of 
heated metal thrown at her was too much for 
her, and after half an hour of hard knocks, 
when his schooner was doomed, one man 
killed and six wounded, Captain Henly, her 
commander, deserted her and with his crew 
escaped to shore. Shortly after his landing 
the vessel blew up with a terrible report that 
shook the jelly-like earth for miles around 
and set the non-combatants in New Orleans 
agape with fear. 

And yet, after the incredible labor of 
dragging twelve heavy guns, a furnace, and 
tons of ammunition for a distance of eighty-odd 
miles, the British had destroyed one twelve- 
pound cannon and several smaller ones, 
killed one man, and wrecked a vessel that 
could not have stood a moderate gale at sea. 

In the meanwhile the Louisiana had es- 
caped. Having more at stake and no wind 
164 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

to help her, she got out her boats and men 
and was towed, against the current, to a 
point out of range. The nine guns she car- 
ried might have been silenced forever had 
Pakenham possessed the wit to have made her 
his first mark ; later he undoubtedly wished 
he had — for she is yet to do yeoman's service. 

The same day was a busy one for the 
Americans, for the little battle did not in- 
terrupt their duties. The ditch was being 
widened and deepened, the earth embank- 
ment heightened, but the works were far 
from finished. Two large cannon were add- 
ed to the two already in position, and the 
next morning another showed its black 
mouth pointing outward ; later, the escaped 
crew from the Carolina, now expert with 
heavy artillery, came to work them. 

The morning of the 28th dawned bright 
and bracing, yet soft and beautiful. It was 
like a perfect September day in the North. 
Birds sang and the sun shone from a cool, 
though cloudless sky. 

Very early in the day it became apparent 
'- 165 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

to Jackson that at last something was about 
to happen. From the roof of his head- 
quarters — a plantation house a little behind 
the lines — he could view the distant enemy 
by means of an old telescope he had bor- 
rowed. Much had he wondered at the long 
delay of his opponent. That the Americans 
had been allowed five days to strengthen 
themselves argued that Pakenham had 
something up his sleeve the nature of which 
was to be held in reserve. Jackson feared a 
crushing surprise of some sort, and it was 
not without anxiety that he applied the an- 
cient tube to his eye and marked the British 
forming in columns on the now safe plain. 
If it was to be an assault he knew how to 
act and would be ready ; if a subterfuge to 
veil some sharp dodge of a military genius, 
he would do his best to meet the emergency. 
He ordered the Louisiana to be ready to 
veer to the end of her long cable and sweep 
the plain in front of the American line as 
soon as the enemy appeared ; then every 
man was sent to his post of duty. 
166 



^^ 




From the roof of his headquarters he could view the 
distant enemy. 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

The works of the Americans were only 
known in part to Pakenham. He was 
aware of the breastwork, but was unaware of 
the ditch and the fact that the Louisiana — a 
powerful battery — was in position at the end 
of the American line. The conformation of 
the defenses toward the cypress swamp was 
more open to his observation, but he knew 
nothing of the force behind it ; the right 
wing (or river end) was hidden from view 
by a number of buildings belonging to the 
Chalmette plantation, and here was the 
strength of the work. The Louisiana was 
also hidden from the enemy until he came 
fairly within range of her guns. Thinking 
the before-mentioned buildings might shield 
the British during their attack, Jackson had 
them filled with combustibles and arranged 
to fire them at the proper moment by red- 
hot balls. So far they had been an admira- 
ble screen for him. 

Pakenham was in high spirits that bright 
and beautiful morning, and his confidence 
was shared by his army. He had determined 
167 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

to take a close look at his quiet enemy, and 
hoped to find matters in such a shape as to 
permit him to tear a hole in the low defense 
and send his army hurrying along to New- 
Orleans. However, he was wise enough not 
to call this movement a direct attack ; it was 
to be a mere reconnaissance, the reconnoiter- 
ing party to consist of the comfortable force 
of twelve thousand men. His curiosity de- 
manded satisfaction — and received it. 

With the music of bands, rattling of 
drums, and blare of bugles, the showy col- 
umns advanced along the high road, four 
miles or more, without a sign of opposition, 
their flags flying in the merry breeze, the sun 
glinting with blinding radiance along the 
waving rise and fall of rows upon rows of 
polished steel barrels and bayonets. It might 
have been a dress parade from the precision 
with which the army marched, from the rich 
scarlet of the uniforms, the gold and plumes 
of the officers. All was confidence and 
gaiety until a turn in the road showed tlie 
black cannon on the entrenchment, the good 
168 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

ship Louisiana slowly veering to the extreme 
length of her immense cable, and the men, 
matches in hand, awaiting the signal. When 
the signal came Pakenham had had his look 
at the Americans, the nearest look he ever 
obtained. 

Suddenly the quiet was broken by a 
crash, " which," said one present, " sounded 
as though the universe had collapsed." Four- 
teen cannon and untold hundreds of rifles 
opened upon the oncoming British. Like 
magic the Chalmette buildings burst into 
flames, and the heat and smoke from these 
soon became thorns in the flesh of the 
enemy. The artillery service was wonder- 
fully accurate, even the suffering English 
acknowledging their astonishment at the 
brilliant marksmanship of the American 
gunners. Round shot, so fired that they 
skipped along the surface of the ground, 
tore through the solid mass of the enemy, 
tossing men, the parts of men, and the dead 
and wounded together into the air. Rifle- 
men, almost unseen, fired, and fell back for 
169 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

others to take their places, and the black 
mud-bank was edged with a fringe of flame 
— wicked spurts that carried death with each 
one, for the Americans were wasting no lead 
that day. 

It was too much for flesh and blood to 
bear. The infantry was ordered from the 
road and formed in the fields somewhat out 
of range of the great cannon, and the Brit- 
ish artillery was brought up to oppose the 
withering fire of the Americans. But it was 
of no use. Men were shot down at the guns 
so fast that at last there was none who would 
serve them, and they lay dismounted and 
deserted until evening, when a band of 
marines ran in, lifted them on to their broad 
shoulders, and so saved them from capture by 
the patriots. 

But the infantry, now out of artillery 
fire, went bravely forward to carry the breast- 
work, but they were halted by the ditch, 
which had not been taken into account. It 
was death to proceed, death to stand still, 
and death to go backward. Here panic 
170 



THE ENGLISH ADVANCE 

seized vast bodies of men. Many ran into 
the canal, the depth of which was unknown, 
and knelt among the reeds and grasses, at- 
tempting to hide from the terrible marks- 
men ; many more, unhurt, dropped on the 
open field and lay there, saving their lives 
by taking on the stillness of death, while 
others crawled behind clumps of bushes or 
lay prone in shallow and slimy ditches. All 
thoughts of attacking were blown to the 
winds ; those who had not been shot, or had 
hidden, began a precipitate retreat, and the 
immediate business of the British command- 
er was to get his men out of the predica- 
ment in which he had placed them. The 
troops did not draw off in well-ordered re- 
treat, but covered themselves as best they 
could until dark, when, regiment by regi- 
ment, sometimes company by company, and 
much more frequently, man by man, they 
stole off. There was no pursuit. 

This is the way Parton sums it up : 
"What a day for the heroes of the Penin- 
sula and the stately Ninety-third Highlanders 
171 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

— lying low in wet ditches, some of them for 
seven hours, under that relentless cannonade, 
and then slinking away behind fences, huts, 
and burning houses, or even crawling along 
on the bottom of ditches, happy to get be- 
yond the reach of those bounding balls, that 
* knocked down the soldiers,* says Captain 
Cook, * and tossed them into the air like old 
bags ! ' 

**And what a day for General Jackson 
and his four thousand, who saw the magnifi- 
cent advance of the morning, not without 
misgivings, and then beheld the most splen- 
did and imposing army they had ever seen 
sink, as it were, into the earth and vanish 
from their sight ! 

** This reconnaissance cost General Pak- 
enham a loss of fifty killed and wounded. 
The casualties on the American side were 
nine killed and eight wounded." 



172 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ARTILLERY DUEL 

What was to be done after this fiasco ? 
Pakenham kept his hand very close — so 
close that Jackson was puzzled, but he went 
on strengthening his lines. A mile or so 
behind the existing defense he started an- 
other, and still to the rear of that marked 
out a third. If the city was to fall it 
would cost the British all it was worth to 
them. 

For three days nothing happened. The 
British lay two miles below, in plain sight 
of the Americans, but they made no move 
otherwise than to appear very busy among 
themselves. Were they preparing to de- 
part ? Not yet. From the strength of the 
American works Pakenham had come to 
the conclusion that they must be taken by 
regular approaches — approaches such as are 

173 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

used in siege operations. By planting bat- 
teries nearer and nearer and beating down 
the breastworks with heavy shot, matters 
would be in shape for a successful assault. 
The business on hand, then, was to get a 
large number of heavy guns from the fleet. 

On the last day of December, 1814, 
the British had rafted and dragged twenty 
long eigh teen-pounders and ten twenty-four- 
pounders into camp. That night nearly 
half the army marched out to within one 
thousand feet of the American position, 
and there, silently and under cover of the 
darkness, they performed the prodigious feat 
of constructing six batteries of five heavy 
guns each, and the Americans had no sus- 
picion of what was in progress. Once or 
twice a dull pounding was heard by the out- 
post and reported, but it was not dreamed 
that guns of large caliber were being 
mounted so near. As arranged, the British 
artillery outweighed and outnumbered the 
opposing metal by three to one. 

When the batteries had been constructed 



THE ARTILLERY DUEL 

the army laid down among the rushes, some 
distance in the rear, there to await the morn- 
ing, the cannonade, the breach, and the 
order for a rush. Victory was a foregone 
conclusion — and might have been a true one 
save for those barrels of sugar with which 
the British had built their battery walls. 
Earth was scarce, and the making of earth 
embankments took time — and time was 
precious ; the batteries had to be finished 
by daybreak, for the spiteful and well-served 
American guns would make work on walls 
impossible after that. 

But that something was in the wind 
Jackson already knew. In the night a de- 
serter from the British had brought in infor- 
mation that Pakenham was placing two 
heavy howitzers on the levee for the pur- 
pose of destroying the Louisiana should she 
again swing into position for the purpose of 
sweeping the plain. Therefore the Louisi- 
ana remained at her safe anchorage above 
the lines, but Commodore Patterson was 
wise enough to send his crew to the defenses 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

across the river, and there they were on hand 
to work its guns against the enemy. 

The morning of January i, 1815, broke 
still and foggy ; so thick was the air that 
objects could be distinguished but a few 
rods distant. It was holiday time, and Jack- 
son, knowing nothing of the menace so near 
his line and feeling fairly sure of being unin- 
terrupted, somewhat slackened the discipline 
of his army, and in deference to the day de- 
cided to hold a grand review of his forces 
on the ground lying between his headquar- 
ters and the entrenchments. 

The men had spruced up and formed. 
It was about ten o'clock, and the unsuspect- 
ing army was about being put through its 
paces before its general, when, like a trans- 
formation scene in a theater, the blanket of 
fog suddenly lifted. 

The whole scene was now in full view 
of the waiting enemy, who were, as stated, 
about one thousand feet away. They saw the 
dressed ranks of the Americans ; they heard 
the blare of the bands and noted the fact 

176 



THE ARTILLERY DUEL 

that the ramparts were well-nigh deserted. 
Why did they not charge? With a rush 
they might have run over the walls and 
swept the platoons and battalions into wild 
confusion — only — there was the ditch, the 
depth of which was unknown, and the bridge 
ladders were still in the rear. 

No, the British did not charge as they 
might have done with success at that mo- 
ment, but they did the next best thing. 
With their thirty guns they opened fire full 
upon the orderly and surprised mass of men, 
who had no more looked for this than for 
the opening of the earth. In an instant all 
was rampant confusion. Companies, bat- 
talions, regiments, officers, and men fell into 
the direst disorder, and, without exception, 
ran. But they did not run toward New 
Orleans ; they ran to the entrenchments, 
where alone lay safety, and where also lay 
their posts of duty. 

But it was a disorderly mob. The sud- 
denness and fierceness of the unexpected 
cannonade was temporarily demoralizing, and 
177 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

it was some time — say ten minutes — before 
the American gunners had recovered proper 
order and were ready to return the fire, and 
then the smoke and fog were too thick to 
permit of a sure aim. The British batteries 
were narrow-fronted and lay low on the great 
wet plain ; they were not easily seen, but 
when the wind finally tossed aside the murky 
curtain and exposed them, there came such 
a blast of fire and shock from the American 
line, that, coupled with the thirty guns al- 
ready bellowing, it shook the unfirm land like 
a mighty earthquake. 

Across the river Patterson's men engaged 
the howitzers erected on the levee, and for 
an hour and a half pandemonium was let 
loose. That the British did much damage 
is without question, but the damage done 
was not to the embankment they had hoped 
to level, for their best-aimed shot only sunk 
deep into the spongy mass and did no harm. 
The cotton-bales on which Jackson had de- 
pended, especially those near the river end of 
the line, were treated unceremoniously, being 

178 



THE ARTILLERY DUEL 

knocked about by round shot and frequently 
set on fire by Congreve rockets. Several 
casualties resulted in the effort to quench 
the flames and end the suffocating smoke, 
but for all this there was no breach for the 
waiting forces to storm, and the damage was 
rapidly repaired. Some of the balls flew 
over the mark and did execution among 
those serving the guns, and only ended their 
mad career far in the rear, where, too, they 
killed several men. One or two guns were 
injured by the bombardment and several 
ammunition cases were exploded, blowing 
up with loud reports, at which the British 
cheered. 

The house which was Jackson's head- 
quarters was so played upon and riddled as 
to be useless. The general's staff had been 
thunderstruck as the first shots crashed 
through the walls, but though one or two 
officers were knocked down and covered 
with ddbris, no one was seriously hurt. 

For all the thunder and crashing and 
hurly-burly, at no time during this artillery 
179 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

duel was the line weakened. It was nearly 
noon before it became apparent to the en- 
trenched patriots that the British fire was 
slackening. Was it in preparation for as- 
sault? The defenders waited, every nerve 
stretched tightly. Presently the thunder of 
the improvised batteries ceased altogether, 
and then the Americans held their fire and 
prepared for the shock, each moment ex- 
pecting to see the British columns advan- 
cing with fixed bayonets. 

Slowly the smoke lifted, but not so 
slowly but that it went quickly enough for 
the brave commander and his army to see 
the enemy in full retreat. As the air cleared 
it was observed that the batteries erected so 
suddenly and hopefully had been knocked to 
ruins ; the menaces of a few hours before 
were now but heaps of earth, broken staves, 
and useless metal. The barrels of sugar had 
been built into a house of cards. The Amer- 
ican shot had torn through them and gone 
onward, where they had killed many in the 
waiting army, which, by the way, "had not 
180 



THE ARTILLERY DUEL 

lingered for the end, but had retreated out 
of harm's path. Great guns broken and dis- 
mounted, carriages in splinters, and indescri- 
bable ruin met the gaze of the surprised 
Americans, and there, also, in the distance, 
were the gunners — the British marines — 
running away as fast as their legs could 
carry them. Again the enemy had been 
repulsed. 

What a shout arose ! It was an outburst 
of mental exaltation, and it served to quicken 
the pace of the frightened runners. Rough 
men shook hands with or embraced each 
other while tears born of excitement rolled 
down their cheeks. They wanted to leap 
over the breastworks and pursue, but cooler 
heads prevailed, and presently the victorious 
army fell into their normal order and the 
British returned to their camp. 

As a result of such a storm of metal it is 
a wonder that the losses on both sides were 
not greater. The enemy had thirty killed 
and about as many wounded ; the Americans, 
eleven killed and twenty-three wounded, and 
'^ 181 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

of these latter it is said that the majority 
were not on the firing line, but doing duty 
or acting as reserves far in the rear. 



182 



CHAPTER XVII 

PREPARATIONS 

And was this second advance of the in- 
vading army to be the last ? Had Paken- 
ham become discouraged? Would he re- 
treat? Many well-balanced minds thought 
so, Jackson among the rest, but the general 
so lacked confidence in his own expressed 
opinion that he kept every available man at 
work repairing the damage done and strength- 
ening the defenses. Among other improve- 
ments, he got rid of the well-nigh useless 
cotton bales and used earth in their stead. 

Monday passed without alarm ; so did 
Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, and 
in the meantime the American army had 
been reenforced by the 2,200 Kentuckians 
referred to before. A poor, bedraggled body 
of men they were as they marched into New 
Orleans, ragged, hungry, and almost entirely 

183 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

unarmed. The city was nearly exhausted of 
all kinds of arms and clothing, but, like the 
young giantess she was and is, she lifted her- 
self to the occasion and soon had the shiver- 
ing and forlorn soldiers covered by clothing 
made from blankets ; they were fed, too, but 
as a body they were not armed. Some few 
found old muskets, but most of them were 
furnished with arms borrowed from the re- 
serves and the sailors, and thus they went to 
the front. 

The enemy was also being strengthened, 
for during those days of no active hostilities 
1,700 regulars, just arrived from England, 
were added to the army, thus bringing the 
British fighting force up to more than seven 
thousand well-equipped men. 

On Friday night Jackson received his 
first inkling of what was going forward in 
the silent camp two miles below, and the 
news terminated his period of harrowing un- 
certainty, and made it sure that Pakenham 
intended to try his teeth once more, and on 
a grander scale than before. The British 
184 



PREPARATIONS 

general had determined to reduce the Amer- 
ican defenses across the river, and at the same 
time move all his men not thus occupied 
against the main line. It was to be a great 
assault en masse — a storming party which was 
to comprehend his entire army. 

But to convey men across the river he 
must have boats, and to get his boats on to 
the swift bosom of the Mississippi he must 
cut a canal across the solid ground and con- 
nect the waters of the lagoon, up which the 
army had originally advanced, with the river 
itself. It was a prodigious piece of labor 
performed under the greatest disadvantage, 
but by night and day alternate shifts of men 
dug, and dug in water and out. At last the 
ditch was completed, but it became almost 
useless, as will be seen. 

This plan had been laid almost immedi- 
ately after the second repulse, and it was this 
canal on which the British were engaged 
during the days of their seeming inaction. 
If the storming party which were to move 
through it should capture the lesser work on 

185 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

the west bank and turn its guns on Jackson's 
flank, the American general would be obliged 
to fall back to his inner defenses, and even 
New Orleans would be in danger. 

But the American general was quite as 
well aware of this as was the British general, 
though he was unable to effectually guard 
against the western attack, but here it was 
that the Mississippi took a hand in the mat- 
ter, and, just as the canal was completed, the 
trap ready to be sprung, and a British force 
of 1,400 men was about to move, the water 
fell so low that the plan balked. The boats 
would not float. A number were pushed 
over the mud and into the river, but in the 
end less than five hundred men, under the 
daring Colonel Thornton, succeeded in reach- 
ing the western bank. 

It is well there were no more. Colonel 
Morgan, who commanded the threatened 
fortification, had but 800 men, and they mi- 
litia, poorly armed and entirely unused to 
war. It is stated by critics that Jackson 
should have sent a greater and better body of 
186 



PREPARATIONS 

soldiers to this very important point, but he 
knew he must bear the brunt of the attack 
on the eastern side of the river, and had but 
2,500 men to oppose something over twice 
that number. 

The failure of the boats was one large 
point in favor of the Americans, but there 
was another incident which had even a 
greater bearing on the result of the day. 

As from every army there are deserters, 
so one left the Americans, worked his way 
through the outposts and pickets, and ap- 
peared before Pakenham. That general 
questioned the man very closely, and was 
told that the weakest part of the American 
line was at the edge of the cypress swamp, 
where were posted the forces of Generals 
Coffee and Carroll. This was true. The 
embankment was here the weakest in con- 
struction, but then there lay the coolest and 
deadliest shots in the whole army. The de- 
serter forgot to tell this, nor did he tell (be- 
cause he did not know) that after he ran 
away General Adair chanced to bring to that 

187 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

very point one thousand fire-eating Ken- 
tuckians to act as a reserve. This ignorance 
and omission proved fatal to Pakenham, for 
he at once determined to concentrate his 
greatest strength on what he considered 
Jackson's vulnerable point. 

It was Commodore Patterson who dis- 
covered the imminence of the attack. He 
had spent the night on the western bank of 
the Mississippi, opposite the newly made 
canal, and though he could not see, he heard 
enough to know that the British were about 
to cross the stream. He hurriedly sent word 
to Jackson and prayed for more troops for 
his own side of the river, but Jackson, waked 
from his midnight doze by the messenger 
refused the request as one impossible to 
comply with, and then roused his aides, who, 
wrapped in their cloaks, were sleeping on 
the floor of his room. 

" Gentlemen, we have slept enough ! 
Rise ; I must go and see Coffee ! " 

It was about three o'clock on the morn- 
ing of January 8, 1815. By four o'clock 
188 



PREPARATIONS 

every man was at his post of duty and 
every foot of the embankment was lined 
with heads, the eyes of which peered over the 
great field in a vain endeavor to penetrate the 
darkness and mists of the early morning. 
There was not a soul there but felt that 
something great was soon to happen. 



189 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE GRAND ASSAULT 

Let us leave them v/atching and turn our 
attention to what was going on within the 
British lines. 

While the Americans were forming to 
await the expected attack, General Paken- 
ham was on the bank of the river watching 
the tardy getting away of Colonel Thornton's 
men. After looking at them for some time 
he expressed his impatience at his hard luck, 
and, remarking that he could not wait longer 
for Thornton's move, rode away. It was 
now on the verge of dawn, and as he wished 
to have the heads of his columns well to the 
front by daylight, he determined to act at 
once. 

As he rode toward the army he was met 
with information that the leading regiment, 
the Forty-fourth, under Colonel MuUins, 
190 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

had gone ahead without taking the bridge 
ladders which were to be rushed over the 
ditch and across which the following army 
was to pass. This was a fatal omission on 
the part of Colonel Mullins, and afterward 
cost him his commission, and by the time 
the ladders and fascines had been obtained 
the men who carried them and who should 
have been far in front were now well to the 
rear, as in the meantime the whole army had 
been ordered forward — all but the reserves 
under General Lambert. 

The first movement made, there was no 
stopping it ; an army is too unwieldy and 
has too great an inertia to be handled with 
ease and in a moment. Forward went the 
columns with the determined and stolid 
tread that characterizes the British regulars 
to this day ; grim old veterans whose faces 
reflected their doubts of the wisdom of the 
attack, and gay young blades laughing and 
joking from nervousness and a desire to 
hide it. .Many higher than the obedient 
private felt that a mistake was being made 
191 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

and openly expressed themselves against the 
judgment displayed in ordering an open as- 
sault. Colonel Dale handed his watch and a 
letter to his regimental physician and asked 
that they might be forwarded to his wife, 
saying he would die that day. Colonel Mul- 
lins openly cursed his superior for having 
doomed his regiment to certain slaughter. 
He said : " Their dead bodies are to be used 
as a bridge for the rest of the army to march 
over." Others were less outspoken, but 
equally depressed. 

If Pakenham himself became alive to 
the prevailing fear and was penetrated by 
doubts of his own wisdom, it was then too 
late to alter matters. The single rocket 
that whizzed aloft through the raw morning 
air and which was the signal (as well as a 
warning to the Americans) for the left to as- 
sault, settled the affair forever. The match 
which fired that useless rocket fired the train 
that led to one of the greatest disasters ever 
met with by a British force. 

By six o'clock both right and left col- 
192 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

umns were well on their way. The dull 
morning concealed from the American out- 
posts the vast concourse of men until they 
were close upon them, then the lonely 
watchers fled in haste and carried to Jackson 
the word that the British were coming. 

Every man behind the defenses now 
eagerly awaited the moment when the red 
columns should heave in sight — and none so 
eagerly as the gunners, who were to engage 
long before the dull crimson line came with- 
in range of the riflemen. Every piece was 
loaded and primed, every artilleryman stood 
at pose and poise, the match-man flare in 
hand. The greater cannon contained solid 
shot, the smaller guns were loaded to the 
muzzle with musket-balls and pieces of scrap- 
iron. 

Parton says : " Lieutenant Spotts, of bat- 
tery Number Six, was the first man in the 
American lines who descried through the fog 
the dim red line of General Gibbs*s ad- 
vancing column, far down the plain close to 
the forest. The thunder of his great gun 

193 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

broke the stillness. Then there was silence 
again, for the shifting fog, or the altered 
position of the enemy, concealed him from 
view once more. The fog lifted again, and 
soon revealed both divisions, which, with 
their detached companies, seemed to cover 
two-thirds of the plain, and gave the Ameri- 
cans a repetition of the military spectacle 
which they had witnessed on the 28th of 
December." 

Let us remain a moment with the attack 
on the left — the so-called weak point. Facing 
three batteries which were now playing on 
them. General Gibbs and his men rushed on, 
always steady and always closing the terrible 
gaps that opened in the wake of the round 
shot which tore through the mass. What 
might not such gallant men have accom- 
plished had they but the missing ladders! As 
the ditch appeared before them there was a 
halt and the line became confused. Where 
are the fascines? Where are the ladders? 
Where is the Forty-fourth ? Somewhere 
behind and useless. General Pakenham, 
194 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

riding forward, found members of that regi- 
ment rushing around without purpose or 
direction. He was horrified at the sight. 
** For shame!" he cried. ** This is the road 
you ought to go ! " And he pointed toward 
the front. 

In the meantime, Gibbs's halted column, 
unable to go forward and looking in vain for 
the delinquent ladder bearers, were being 
mowed down like grain, for now every rifle 
on the American left was blazing full upon 
them. When more than half their num- 
ber had fallen they broke and fled, to the 
utter chagrin of their commander, who was 
forced to report to the general that his men 
would no longer obey him. Pakenham was 
furious. Placing his plumed hat on the 
point of his sword, he raised it high above 
his head and rode to the front of the dis- 
ordered column. Voices could not be heard 
in the uproar, but his action was understood. 
Some of the men turned, and into the hail of 
lead and iron he spurred his horse. At once 
his right arm was struck and shattered and 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

his horse fell dead beneath him. Springing 
to his feet, he mounted the horse of one of 
his aides, and, apparently unconscious of his 
injury, followed his retreating column, com- 
manding and imploring them to halt. Fired 
by the bravery of their commander, a few 
turned again, rushed through the ditch and 
scrambled up the steep and slippery earth- 
work, only to fall riddled by the storm of 
bullets that met them. 

Once out of range of the terrible tempest, 
the disordered division reformed. Now was 
to come a greater attempt, and they divested 
themselves of their heavy knapsacks and all 
superfluous weight. They were reenforced, 
too, by the famous Highlanders, and the 
blare of the bagpipes droned above the 
thunder of the guns. Again they advanced 
to the front. This time they were to go on 
through the ditch, ladders or no ladders, and 
with the wounded but undaunted Paken- 
ham leading and in plain sight, they rushed 
forward, with a result the details of which are 
sickening. 

196 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

Men fell by the score ; one discharge of 
the bullet-burdened cannon cut down two 
hundred ; the plain was reeking with blood. 
So rapid was the American fire that the top 
of the breastwork looked like a thin sheet of 
flame through which at frequent intervals 
there leaped the longer and fiercer spurts 
of the artillery. It was human butchery, 
and nothing made of flesh and blood could 
endure such a fusilade. The column faltered 
under the whirlwind of death, then halted, 
then fell into wild confusion. Pakenham 
at last realized the nature of his undertaking 
and, turning to an officer, he shouted, " Call 
up the reserves ! " At that moment the con- 
tents of a thirty -two -pounder filled with, 
grape-shot struck the group of which he was 
the center. Again his horse fell dead beneath 
him and a ball tore open his thigh. Ready 
hands lifted, him, but ere he could be borne 
to a place of safety he was struck in the 
body and at once lapsed into unconscious- 
ness. He never spoke again, but beneath a 
tree some distance in the rear breathed his 
'' 197 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

last in a few moments, fortunately for his 
peace of mind, ignorant of the result of the 
attack. 

Immediately after the fall of Pakenham 
Gibbs fell and died in agony the following 
day; General Keane was wounded and borne 
away; Colonel Dale, of the Highlanders, was 
killed outright, thus making good his proph- 
ecy, and but a little later panic seized the 
entire right of the British army; the troops 
fell into the wildest disorder and fled in terror 
from the field, a crazed rabble. 

But not all. Even running they dropped 
under the relentless fire, some never to rise 
again, but hundreds, unhurt, fell to the earth 
in sheer fright, and there lay for hours. 
Every depression, every slimy ditch, shallow 
or not, was packed with demoralized sol- 
diers, sometimes two or three .deep, each 
gone temporarily mad from dread of sudden 
death. 

There were but few exceptions to this 
state of affairs on the right, and it is here 
pleasant to note the devotion of a few noble 
198 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

souls. Let us again refer to Parton for a 
picture. 

** Major Wilkinson, followed by Lieuten- 
ant Lavack and twenty men, pressed on to 
the ditch, floundered across it, climbed the 
breastwork, and raised his head and shoulders 
above the summit, upon which he fell riddled 
with balls. The Tennesseeans and Kentuck- 
ians defending that part of the lines, struck 
with admiration by such heroic conduct, 
lifted his still breathing body and conveyed 
it tenderly behind the works. 

**'Bear up, my dear fellow,' said Major 
Simley of the Kentucky reserves ; * you are 
too brave a man to die ! ' 

"*I thank you from my heart,' whispered 
the dying man. * It's all over with me. You 
can render me a favor ; it is to communicate 
to my commander that I fell on your parapet, 
and died like a soldier and a true English- 
man.' " 

Strange as it may appear, Lavack was 
not struck, but reached the top of the 
breastwork and leaped down among the 

199 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

Americans. Thinking he had been followed 
by his men, he demanded the officer in charge 
at that point to surrender, but was very 
politely informed that as he was alone he 
might consider himself a prisoner. There- 
upon he turned around, and to his utter con- 
sternation discovered that his brave followers 
had been shot down, his entire regiment had 
disappeared as if by magic, and those of it 
who were not dead or disabled were burrow- 
ing into the ground in an endeavor to get 
beyond the reach of American bullets. His 
own freedom from a wound of any kind was 
nothing short of miraculous. 

Behind that part of the breastworks which 
had been so fiercely defended the great- 
est excitement prevailed. The reserves, no 
longer reserved, had rushed into the fight 
with the greatest of glee. Much seeming 
confusion existed, for with men struggling 
to reach the parapet, firing into the smoke 
ahead, falling back to load, running with am- 
munition, and cheering and shouting from 
excitement, disorganization appeared to pre- 
200 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

vail, but not for a moment were the defend- 
ers demoralized ; never did they fail to obey 
orders. 

And yet through all the volcano of hatred 
and strife, thunder, smoke, and blood, the 
center of the line was inactive. Both right 
and left wings of the army were hotly en- 
gaged, but here not a shot was fired by a 
small arm ; instead, the band stationed near 
headquarters played national airs throughout 
the whole battle, which lasted no^ more than 
twenty-five minutes, and here Jackson and 
the surrounding and impatient force stood 
and acted as mere spectators. It was a wide 
stage on which the tragedy was enacted, and 
when the curtain of smoke was tossed aloft, 
the movements of all the actors were in plain 
sight. What must have been the old man's 
sensations when he saw the British right wing 
hurled back and destroyed, the left faring but 
little better, for here, again, the defenders of 
New Orleans turned their little mound of 
earth into a stream of bullet-laden fire. The 
British fell by hundreds until, unable to en- 

201 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

dure the blast, whole regiments turned and 
ran or groveled in the earth as did their fel- 
lows at the opposite end of the line. 

As the dense smoke settled down and 
closed the view of the plain, the firing still 
went on as fiercely as ever. Not knowing 
that the British had retreated, but fancying 
them forming for renewed assault, for two 
hours the Americans loaded their rifles and 
cannon and sent their shot singing over 
a field deserted by all save the dead, the 
wounded, and the cowering soldier. 

Among those who had set forth but a 
short time before, all discipline was at an end 
until the panic-stricken men had returned to 
camp. The loss had been frightful. Gen- 
eral Lambert, now suddenly at the head of 
the army, was appalled at the disaster. He 
was almost destitute of field-officers. There 
had been killed or wounded three major- 
generals, eight colonels and lieutenant - 
colonels, six majors, eighteen captains, and 
fifty-four lieutenants. Seven hundred pri- 
vates were killed outright^ fourteen hundred 

202 



THE GRAND ASSAULT 

wounded, and five hundred were taken pris- 
oners during and after the action. Jackson's 
loss was exactly eight men killed and thirteen 
wounded. Of his dead, but two had fallen 
behind the real line of defense; of the others, 
two had been on outpost duty when shot, 
and four were killed while fighting skirmish- 
ers in the swamp. What a contrast ! It 
does not take a military mind to see that 
some one had blundered. 

At last the firing gradually ceased and the 
gunners rested to let their pieces cool and 
the smoke blow away. What a scene finally 
met the view of the anxious and awe-stricken 
watchers from the parapet ! Prostrate men 
covered the field, writhing in agony, and no 
band could have drowned the great minor 
chord of the chorus of shrieks that rose from 
the plain. Save for a dim, red line far in the 
distance, the last of the retreating British, 
the wide stretch of flat land had been given 
up to the dead, the wounded, and the coward. 
Of the latter, Jackson said : 

" I never had so grand and awful an idea 
203 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

of the resurrection as on that day. After the 
smoke of the battle had cleared off some- 
what, I saw in the distance more than five 
hundred Britons emerging from the heaps of 
their dead comrades all over the plain, rising 
up, and still more distinctly visible as the 
field became clearer, coming forward and sur- 
rendering as prisoners of war to our soldiers. 
They had fallen at our first fire upon them 
without having received as much as a scratch, 
and lay prostrate as if dead until the close of 
the action." 



204 



CHAPTER XIX 

PROGRESS 

But with all this, the Americans were to 
witness disaster to themselves. For on the 
other side of the river Colonel Thornton 
with his four hundred men had carried the 
works, beaten back its eight hundred defend- 
ers, and were driving them up the west bank 
and toward the city. The fair prospects of 
the American army were suddenly clouded. 
Jackson saw that if Patterson had left a sin- 
gle cannon unspiked the British could turn 
it upon his victorious army and nullify its 
past success ; indeed, if unmolested, they 
could proceed up the river until opposite 
New Orleans, and, with a single field-piece, 
have the city at their mercy. 

Fortunately, Thornton's success had been 
a tardy one and the main British army had 
been effectually disposed of by the time he 
205 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

had routed Patterson. Thus Jackson had 
plenty of men at his disposal and was enabled 
to throw a strong force across the river by 
marching it back to the city and sending it 
over by the ferry there. The action was 
prompt and the retreating militia were soon 
met by reenforcements under General Hum- 
bert, who rallied them, but before they could 
attempt to storm the works from which they 
had been driven. General Lambert, too 
shocked and perplexed to realize the impor- 
tance of Thornton's success, ordered the cap- 
tured works to be abandoned and the Brit- 
ish to return to the eastern side of the river. 
The Americans, now eager for battle, again 
took possession of the evacuated defense, 
drilled the spikes from the cannon, and waited 
for another attack. But they waited in vain ; 
no attack came, neither was there as much as 
an alarm on either side of the river. 

For Lambert, sick at heart and utterly 

unable to cope with the situation, did not 

follow up his immense advantage ; instead, 

he sent in a flag of truce, and after some de- 

206 



PROGRESS 

lay a truce was allowed, during which the 
dead were to be buried. 

But they were not buried that day nor 
evening. All night the dead on the field re- 
mained close to the American army. What 
a harvest was here ! Windrow upon windrow 
of red-coated humanity sacrificed to ambition 
and man's hatred for his brother. There 
they lay, a lesson that the world is just be- 
ginning to study — a commentary on war. 
So let us leave the ghastly scene ; for this, 
even to-day, history can not show a fair ex- 
cuse for England. 

For ten days the two armies lay near each 
other, the Americans unmolested, the British 
suffering from an occasional cannonade from 
across the river. Nothing was left for them 
but ignominious retreat, and on the i8th 
they stole away after having, with immense 
labor, constructed a flimsy, reed-covered road 
through the morass. Over this, regiment by 
regiment, they withdrew in the night, leaving 
dummy sentinels standing, their flags flying, 
and their cannon destroyed. In England 
207 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

the move was considered a most masterly 
one, and brought General Lambert a knight- 
hood; Pakenham, the brave and foolish, 
was well-nigh forgotten, while it was pro- 
claimed that Lambert was a military genius. 
A number of the dangerously wounded who 
were too low to be moved, were by letter 
consigned to the care of Jackson. 

The enemy had gone. They had come 
in glory and hope ; they had retreated hope- 
less, decimated, and covered with mud. It 
was some hours before the move was even 
suspected by Jackson, but when upon in- 
vestigation it was discovered, the great cam- 
paign was practically ended, though the line 
was still maintained, and military discipline 
was as strict as ever. 

For though the British had retreated to 
their ships, there still lay the ships, a menace, 
and no one knew where the next blow would 
fall. 

During this period of inaction the men 
in the ditches, exposed to all the pernicious 
influences of cold, wet, and malaria, began to 
208 



PROGRESS 

sicken and die. Before the news of peace 
reached New Orleans more than five hun- 
dred had died, and the hospitals in the city 
were filled with sick soldiers. 

It was on March 13th that the authorita- 
tive news of peace reached Jackson, though 
unofficial rumors had long preceded the wel- 
come message. Then it was seen that the 
great battle had been without warrant ; yet 
that did not affect the amount of praise 
showered on the victor and his troops. The 
latter were disbanded, and after a rest of four 
months the hero-general and now idol of the 
South was called to Washington by the 
Secretary of War. To Washington, there- 
fore, went Jackson, taking with him his wife, 
and traveling all the way in a coach drawn 
by four horses, a piece of extravagance that 
brought his political enemies about his ears, 
who charged him with aristocratic preten- 
sions, although a knowledge of the roads of 
those days shows that at times it was all the 
four could do to move the heavy vehicle ; 
two horses could not have dragged it. 
209 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

The result of his Washington visit was 
that he was appointed commander of the 
Southern military division, and soon after the 
Seminole Indians of Florida committed a 
number of outrages on United States citizens. 
To punish them Jackson pursued them into 
Florida (still Spanish territory), marching in 
and taking possession of a Spanish fort in 
his old vehement and high-handed way, and 
thus close to his enemy he scattered or killed 
the hostiles. In connection with this move 
he executed two Englishmen whom, he 
claimed, had incited the red men to outrage, 
and this incident came near to plunging the 
two nations into war again. However, he 
was exonerated by Congress, and the matter 
died. 



210 



CHAPTER XX 

AMBITIONS SATISFIED 

In 182 1, when Florida was ceded to the 
United States, Jackson was appointed its 
Governor. But he had no taste for civil of- 
fice, and after a series of incidents, ludicrous 
in reality, but tragic enough to those who 
suffered, he resigned the appointment and re- 
tired to private life. Home and its comforts 
were, for the time being, his only thoughts. 
He was now fifty-four years of age, prema- 
turely old, and absolutely broken down, phys- 
ically. His income, for those times, was 
large. One would have thought that, under 
these circumstances, ambition would have 
slept, and the man be content to pass in 
peace the remainder of his days, which were 
always attended with more or less pain. But 
with Andrew Jackson nothing slept. When 
211 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

his State nominated him for the presidency 
of the United States, it was done without his 
hands pulling the wires, but he arose to the 
occasion, and reached for a bauble higher 
than those he had obtained. 

Although he received more votes than any 
of the contestants, he was not elected by the 
people. A majority was necessary and, ac- 
cording to the then existing laws, the se- 
lection fell to the House of Representa- 
tives. There were three candidates — Jackson, 
Adams, and Crawford — and though our hero, 
his friends, and, indeed, the entire country 
considered Jackson's selection a foregone 
conclusion, Adams was chosen. There was 
political treachery somewhere, and Jackson 
never forgave those whom he considered act- 
ive in bringing about the result. 

But four years later he was nominated 
again, and though the campaign was shock- 
ingly personal, though every act of his life 
was laid bare, his motives misrepresented, 
his wife maligned, and his own character 
painted blacker than it could possibly be, he 

212 



AMBITIONS SATISFIED 

was triumphantly elected, and again, four 
years after, elected to succeed himself. 

His political acts have no place in a vol- 
ume of the scope of this. Suffice it to say 
that he kept the country in a turmoil, al- 
though he kept peace abroad and inaugurated 
policies which exist to this day. 

He was successful in nearly all he under- 
took to do. He killed the arrogant United 
States Bank. He humbled John C. Cal- 
houn and the ** nullifiers " of South Carolina. 
He triumphed over those political giants of 
that day Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. 
He raised the standard of citizenship in the 
nation. He was intensely patriotic and in- 
tensely opinionated, as such intense person- 
ages are sure to be, but, withal, he was open 
to conviction. 

PI is wife died suddenly, just previous to 
his first inauguration, and from this prostra- 
ting blow he never recovered ; it affected both 
his health and his spirits, for he loved her 
tenderly and loyally. He often remarked 
that heaven would be no heaven for him if 
^5 213 



THE LAND HERO OF 1812 

his wife was not there. This affliction was 
said to have aged him twenty years in a 
single day. 

When he retired from the presidency he 
was an old man in years, being seventy, and 
older in body. He returned to his home, 
The Hermitage, to pass his remaining days, 
which were to be but few. He had been in 
the grasp of consumption for years ; one lung 
was gone, the other affected, and he had fre- 
quent hemorrhages. His old wound, re- 
ceived in the duel with Dickinson, troubled 
him ; the ball in his shoulder had been ex- 
tracted while he was in the presidential chair. 

But the still vigorous brain of the man 
kept him alive, or allowed him to die but 
slowly ; he wore out, in fact. Shortly after 
his retirement he put his old life behind him 
and joined the church, as he had promised 
his wife he would do when his motives for 
doing so could not be impugned, and his 
later days were passed in reading his Bible 
and hymn-book and seeing his old and in- 
timate friends. 

214 



AMBITIONS SATISFIED 

On June, 8, 1845, this singular but great 
old man passed away as peacefully as most 
men fall asleep. He had made enemies by 
the hundreds, but friends by the thousands. 
He had been neither better nor worse than 
most men, but his overpowering individuality 
made both his vices and his virtues seem 
greater than they really were. 

The whole country mourned him, and, as 
in the case of Washington, even his enemies 
united in saying kind things about him. Thus 
does death weave a mantle of charity for a 
shroud. Is it not a pity that the living but 
rarely feel its warmth ? 

(1) 

FINIS 



215 



BY CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY^ 
The Quiberon Touch. 

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Commodore Paul Jones. 

A new volume in the Great Commander Series, edited 
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" Incomparably fine. Being the work of a scholarly writer, it must stand 
as the best popular life yet available. The book is one to buy and own. It 
is more interesting than any novel, and better written than most histories."—- 
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Reuben James. 

A Hero of the Forecastle. A new volume in the Voung 
Heroes of Our Navy Series. Illustrated by George 
Gibbs and Others. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

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A PICTURESQUE BOOK OF THE SEA* 

A Sailor's Log. 

Recollections of Forty Tears of Naval Life. By Rear- 
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*' His is a picturesque personality, and he stands the supreme 
test by being as popular with his officers and men as he is with 
the public generally. His life has been one of action and adven- 
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COWBOYS AND OKLAHOMA* 

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" Mr. Tilford's story is a book of the humor and adventure of 
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opening of Oklahoma." — The St. Louis Republic. 

** Western novels by Western writers have been few and not 
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land opening in Oklahoma in 1893 is the best thing ever done in 
this line." — The New York Press. 

"Fresh as the clear airs of the great grazing region of the 
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world, this story of ranch life is calculated to arouse the jaded 
interest of the novel reader." — The Washington Star. 

"A young writer who has heretofore confined himself to 
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humor, character drawing, and adventure. It is high-class fiction." 

— The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 

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K FRANKFORT MOORE'S NEW NOVEL. 



Shipmates in Sunshine. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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recent travels. His description of the Islands of the Carribean do not 
suffer because they have been used as a background for an ultra-modern 
romance or series of romances. Martinique plays an important part in 
the story. The ill-fated island is fully dealt with, and also Venezuela, 
the author having visited President Castro at Caracas. 



MR. MOORE* S OTHER BOOKS, 

Castle Omeragh. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

•♦ A story that will keep the reader wide awake." — New York Sun. 
♦• A rollicking story." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
•• Vividly told, full of romance and adventure." — Pittsburg Telegraph. 

A Damsel or Two. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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keen wit." — Chicago Evening Post. 

A Nest of Linnets. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

*' A delightful book for one fond of love affairs, interspersed with duels 
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The Millionaires. 

Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

A Gray Eye or So. 

Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



A NEW BOOK BY ALBERT LEEL 



The Baronet in Corduroy. 

A Historical Romance of tiie days of Queen 
Anne. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

In this story we hear of "The Tatler," of Sir Richard Steele, of 
Addison, Swift, and Defoe, and many other famous characters of the 
time, all to form the background of a tale of enthralling interest. The 
reader is carried back to the coffee-houses, the rollicking street fights, 
and the misery and squalor of Fleet Street ; all of which are delineated 
with the author's usual faithfulness to historical detail. The story is so 
unusual in plot and so convincing in narrative that it cannot fail to 
charm whoever may take it up. 



OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
Each, i2mo, cloth, $i.oo ; paper, 50 cents. 

King Stork of the Netherlands. 

A Romance of the days of the Dutch Republic. 

*« The story throbs with Mie."— Philadelphia Telegraph. 

" An exciting story, with a historical setting. ... A charming love-story." 

— Schenectady Union, 

The Gentleman Pensioner. 

A Romance of the year 1569. 

" A tale of rapid and thrilling incident." — Chicago Chronicle. 

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had to history." — Philadelphia Times. 

The Key of the Holy House. 

A Romance of Old Antwerp. 

"A romance of Antwerp in the days of the Spanish oppression. Mr. Lee 
handlas it in vigorous fashion," — London Spectator. 

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romance which infuses energetic life into the dry facts o( histoij'." 

— Philadelphia Press. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. 

Uniform Edition. Each, J2mo. Qoth, $J.50. 

The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. 

A Romance of the Life of a Typical Napoleonic Soldier. 

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in by * The Three Musketeers.' Written with a dash and swing that here and 
there carry one away." — New York Mail and Express, 

Rodney Stone. 

" A notable and very brilliant work of genius." — London Spectator. 

*' Dr. Doyle's novel is crowded with an amazing amount of incident and 
excitement. ... He does not write history, but shows us the human side of 
his great men, living and moving in an atmosphere charged with the spirit 
of the hard-living, hard-fighting Anglo-Saxon."— Aiew; York Critic. 

Round the Red Lamp. 

Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life. 

•• A strikingly realistic and decidedly original contribution to modem lit- 
erature." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

The Stark-Munro Letters. 

Being a Series of Twelve Letters written by Stark-Munro, M.B., 
to his friend and former fellow student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, 
Massachusetts, during the years 1881-1884. 

" CuUingworth, a much more interesting creation than Sherlock Holmes, 
and I pray Dr. Doyle to give us more of him." 

— Richard le Gallienne in the London Star. 

A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus. 

♦ ' Charming is the one word to describe this volume adequately. Dr. Doyle's 
crisp style and his rare wit and refined humor, utilized with cheerful art that is 
perfect of its kind, fill these chapters with joy and gladness for the reader." 

— Philadelphia Press. 

'• Bright, brave, simple, natural, delicate. It is the most artistic and most 
original thing that its author has done. We can heartily recommend 'A Duet ' 
to all classes of readers. It is a good book to put into the hands of the young 
of either sex. It will interest the general reader, and should delight the critic, 
for it is a work of art. This story taken with the best of his previous work 
gives Dr. Doyle a very high place in modern \eX\.&c%''— Chicago Times-Herald. 

Uncle Bernac. 

■ A Romance of the Empire. 

*• Simple, clear, and well-defined. . . , Spirited in movement all the way 
through. A fine example of clear analytical force." — Boston Herald. 

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The King's Mirror. 

Illustrated, izmo. Cloth, ^1.50. 

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" A story of absorbing interest and one that will add greatly to the author's 
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The Chronicles of Count Antonio. 

With Photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick. i2mo. 
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picturesquely written." — London Daily Neivs. 

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The God in the Car. 

New edition, uniform with " The Chronicles of Count Antonio." 
i2mo. Cloth, ^1.25. 

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" A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible within 
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My Captive. 

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In Circling Camps. 

A Ronance of the American Civil War. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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A Soldier of Manhattan, 

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FELIX GRASPS ROMANCES 



The White Terror. 
A Romance. Translated from the Provencal by Mrs. 
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"Noone has done this kind of work with finer poetic grasp or more 
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The Terror. 

A Romance of the French Revolution. Uniform with 
*'The Reds of the Midi." Translated by Mrs. Catharine 
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♦' If Felix Gras had never done any other work than this novel, it would 
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quality that makes it worthy of something more than a careless perusal." — 
Brooklyn Eagle. 

The Reds of the Midi. 

An episode of the French Revolution. Translated from 
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Introduction by Thomas A. Janvier. With Frontispiece. 
i6mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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fully executed throw more light than many so-called histories on the tiue 
roots and causes of the Revolution, which are so widely and so gravely mis- 
understood. As a novel it seems to me to be written with great skill,"— - 
William E. Gladstone. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. NEW YORK. 



By FRANK R. STOCKTON. 



The Captain's Toil-Gate. 

A Complete Posthumous Novel by Frank R. Stock- 
ton, Author of "Kate Bonnet," "The Lady or the 
Tiger," etc. With a Memoir by Mrs. Stockton, an Etched 
Portrait, Views of Mr. Stockton's Home, and a Bibli- 
ography. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

The scene is partly laid in Washington but mainly in 
that part of West Virginia where the author spent the 
last three years of his life. Incidents centering about 
the " Toil-Gate " and a fashionable country home in the 
neighborhood are related with the author's peculiar 
humor and charm of diction which have endeared him 
to a host of readers. 

The heroine who is an embodiment of the healthy 
vigorous girl of to-day, and her several suitors, together 
with the mistress of the country house and a meddlesome 
unmarried woman of the village, combine to present a 
fascinating and varied picture of social life to the present 
day. 

" In the story we have the real Stockton at his best and brightest. 
The fun, the whimsiGality, the queer doings, the very delightful people 
are such as his readers have been entertained with for so many years. 
The fertility of invention and 'ngenuity is as fresh as in the early 
stories, and perhaps Mr. Stockton never came nearer to success in 
trying to keep a long story together to the end without digressions or 
a break in the plot. The heroine is a charming girl, her married 
hostess still more charming, and there are plenty of others the reader 
will be glad to meet. 

" Mrs. Stockton's sketch of her husband gives us a glimpse of a 
lovable and delightful personality and shows the author at work just 
as the readers must have imagined him. Swinging in a hammock 
under the fir trees, or when winter came, in an easy chair before a big 
log fire, he dreamed his fancies and dictated them, bit by bit, as they 
came, to his secretary." — New York Sun. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



By FRANK R STOCKTON 

TWENTIETH THOUSAND 

Kate Bonnet 

The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter. By^ 
Frank R. Stockton. Illustrated by A. I. 
Keller and H. S. Potter. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

*' A capital story." — London Times. 

*• A rattling good story." — New York Sun. 

*' A sweet and charming story." — Brooklyn Eagle. 

'♦ A delightfully cheerful book." — New York Tribune. 

" Most ludicrous story of the year." — New York Journal. 

*' Just the book to make a dull day bright." — Baltimore Sun. 

" One of Stockton's most delicious creations." — Boston Budget. 

"A live, wide-awake, bold, hesitale-at-nothing story." -Boston Herald. 

" A bright and entertaining tale full of exciting incident." — London 
AthencBum. 

" A characteristic blending of interesting realism and absurdity." — 
New York Life. 

" Full of love, incident, adventure, and true Stocktonian humor." — 
Nashville, Tenn., American. 

" Even with the charming heroine in tears, the reader remains 
cheerful." — New York Outlook. 

" Nothing so fresh, picturesque, and amusing has been presented for 
a long time." — New York Press. 

" A story of adventure written in Mr. Stockton's characteristic 
vein." — New York Commercial Advertiser. 

" The funniest part of the story is the serene gravity with which the 
author chronicles events." — San Francisco Argonaut. 

" The appearance of a new book by Frank Stockton stirs one to an 
agreeable flicker of anticipation." — New York Literary Digest. 

" It is charming, and no one but Mr. Stockton could have written 
it."— Julian Hawthorne, in the Minneapolis Tribune. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. NEW YORK. 






By MAX PEMBERTON. A - 

A Meii) Book hy ihis Author* 

Doctor Xavier. 

Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

For those who like a story of mystery that increases 
from first chapter to the end there is here a book that 
will be welcomed. The factor that makes the perpetual 
charm of "The Arabian Nights" is employed by Mr. 
Pemberton. The author has written a book of constantly 
increasing interest. 

In the character of Doctor Xavier, the scientist all 
but magician is skilfully depicted, while the subordinate 
personages lend an added air of mystery to a cleverly 
written tale. The fact that the scenes are laid among 
cities of the present day, and men and women of out- 
wardly conventional propriety, only adds to the sense of 
magic underlying the story. 



Other Books by Mr* Pemberton* 
Each Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
The House Under the Sea. 
Footsteps of a Throne. 
The Phantom Army. 
Kronstadt. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 






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